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  1. Settings > General does not include “Spotlight Search.” Is this article, dated February 2019, correct for iOS 12?

    How about Siri & Search? (I don’t see it there either.)

  2. this is the solution
    Go to Settings: General: Language
    Change your Language to English (UK)
    Force close the Settings app
    Go to Settings: General: Language again
    Change your Language back to English (US). Enjoy your Settings Search fully functional again! 🙂

  3. Hi all, I want to share my experience and how I fixed my problem with spotlight search not working on the settings menu.

    I am worried sick because the spotlight search has been very helpful in cutting time spent finding stuff (all the time), so when mine stopped working, I researched on how to fix it, I watched YouTube tutorials (but didn’t work).

    Hopeless, I tried reading articles and found this site. The first method I tried was Force Restarting my iPhone (pressing the on/off button and home button for ten seconds until the Apple logo appears). Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Then I tried the next methods, each time checking my Spotlight Search on Settings Menu.. until I used the technique where you have to send an email to yourself, it was like MAGIC, because after I received the email that I sent to myself, Voila!! the Spotlight Search option worked again. :))

    Thank God and this site! It was a tremendous help!

    1. Explain sending an email to yourself please. I have multiple email apps/accounts on my phone. Can ya provide details pretty please?

    2. I’m curious how many users having this issue either 1) Use the iOS mail app and don’t regularly check email. and 2) Use another email client (Airmail, Gmail, Outlook etc) and are forced use the Mail app when sending info from inside another app.

      The same issue brought me here and I’m in the #2 category. I only noticed the issue after attempting to send a link from inside Instagram by email to my wife. No option for my email client so I used email.

      After reading these posts all I did was start the Mail app and immediately went back to check spotlight search. Voila! It was back working again. Hope this helps someone.

  4. Thus article needs updated. The ‘fix’ of “Go to Settings > General > Spotlight Search” does not even apply now on IOS 12.1.4, yet I’m having the exact same problems trying to search ‘Notes’ and trying to find apps quickly. Very frustrating!!

  5. Thanks. Changing the language and then back again worked for me. I’ve been trying to fix this for days. So weird but it works.

  6. With the new updates to my iPhone 6 Plus I ha e a very slow device.
    Spotlight Search does not show location of apps in folders. So how do I move them around if I cannot locate them.

    Notes now freezes up or runs so slow no use using the app anymore.

    I can no longer load Pictures to the shoebox because it takes so long for me picture.
    Same sending I messages so slow. I hate iOS now. I’ve reset tried everything this is happening on all my devices not just one!

    1. iPhone spotlight search does not work on any IOS, up to iOS 13 now. Non of the fixes work. I tried them all!! What now ??

      Thank you
      Michael

  7. Pull down search function no longer works on iPhone 7 Plus after update to 11.01. Only shows Siri suggested apps. Rebooted, turned Siri on and off etc. The search function works for one or two tries after hard reset and then fails again. Very displeased especially using new hardware.

  8. Spotlight search not working as expected.

    Taken from engineerings reply on the issue:

    ———

    “What the customer is experiencing is actually considered expected behaviour. With the release of iOS 10, customers are now only able to search the last 200 messages with Spotlight or the in app search. This would include the last 200 sent and received messages.

    The 200 searchable messages limit is only after restoring from a backup prior to iOS 10. This is why devices that had the same Messages database and were not restored from a backup when they upgraded to iOS 10 can still search prior to the 200 limit.

    If the customer would like to see this function in a different manner going forward, please encourage the customer to submit feedback at apple.com/feedback. “

    ———

  9. Thank you. “Spotlight Search” finally works on my new iPad Pro (10.5-inch). BTW: It works fine on my iPhone 7 and iPad Pro (9.7-inch).

  10. **** The below is apples offical response to if spotlight are not working for messages after IOS10 **** This is the first time I have made a post but I am so ANGRY that apple are aware of this but they have made this happen on PURPOSE

    Spotlight search not working as expected.

    Taken from engineerings reply on the issue:

    ———

    “What the customer is experiencing is actually considered expected behaviour. With the release of iOS 10, customers are now only able to search the last 200 messages with Spotlight or the in app search. This would include the last 200 sent and received messages.

    The 200 searchable messages limit is only after restoring from a backup prior to iOS 10. This is why devices that had the same Messages database and were not restored from a backup when they upgraded to iOS 10 can still search prior to the 200 limit.

    If the customer would like to see this function in a different manner going forward, please encourage the customer to submit feedback at apple.com/feedback. “

    ———

  11. Even same happened with me,but I moved into high speed wifi zone all started working. Though we don’t have news app in our region ,we are only restricted to the news widget ,I was unable to access this widget also and spotlight was not working but moving into high speed wifi helped me by itself.

  12. Many users are complaining that Contact search is not working . Hope that Apple will fixe this ennoying bug .
    Users, Please stop publishing fixes that do not work !

  13. I enter search in gmail; auto fill displays narrowing results for fraction of a second and then goes to blank screen. Version 10.1, iPhone 6S. Not happy about reduced functionality. Help?

  14. None of these are valid fixes. The Apple software developers need to fix the software. How hard can it be? Spotlight starts working in the beginning, but after a few days it stops searching certain apps.

  15. Can you help with text messages not showing up in message search? I’ve been having this issue for probably three updates now and not once has it worked. I can search a keyword from messages that I just sent yesterday, such as “wallet” and it won’t show that message but instead shows one from February!?! It has occurred numerous times and I’ve tried to hard reset my phone, change the language, disable all search, turned iMessage on and off and still no results. This is seriously irritating. I have seen numerous users with the same issue but not solid results online for this issue in particular that I have come across.

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