Spotlight - a great tool for searching system files in OS X. However, he ceases to be such if its index file is corrupted for some reason - and you do not see or more of their files in the search results, or watch as processor load grows at times when Spotlight is trying to "digest" your request.
In case of problems with the indexing in the Spotlight, you may notice a significant increase in system resources consumption process called mds. This process is responsible for indexing Spotlight. You can check this by using the standard tools "monitoring systemยป(Activity Monitor). Pay attention to see mds, it is necessary to choose the "All Processes" from the drop down list of filters processes.
So, if in the first lines of the list of processes you see mds, which "eat off" CPU and / or memory, it's time to compulsorily re-index your hard disk. Here's how:
- Start a terminal
- Run the command:
sudo mdutil -E /
- Enter the administrator password on request
Re-indexing Spotlight might solve the problems with the search and reduce the load on your system. After the implementation of the above command will remove the old Spotlight index and start to build a new one. Please note - the process is not immediate and may take up to several days, depending on the size of your data on the disks. After the completion of the rebuild index Spotlight problems should cease.