We’re seeing a change in Spotlight search behavior on iOS 17 and later: Observation: User‑visible keywords we index (e.g. via Core Spotlight / CSSearchableItemAttributeSet with keywords) only start appearing in Spotlight suggestions after the user has typed more than 3 characters. With 1–3 characters, our app’s content often doesn’t show up at all, even when it clearly matches. Before iOS 17: The same indexed content could appear with fewer characters (e.g. 1–3 characters). Environment: Reproduced on multiple devices running iOS 17.x / 18.x; behavior is consistent. We’d like to confirm: Is this a documented change in iOS 17 (e.g. minimum character threshold for third‑party Spotlight results)? If yes, where is it documented? If it’s not intentional, could this be treated as a bug and considered for a fix in a future release? We’re happy to provide a sample project or more detail if that would help. Thank you.

I'm developing an iOS app that handles custom file types (e.g., .k files), and I want to ensure my app's icon appears in Core Spotlight search results, similar to how 两步路户外助手's icon shows up for associated files (as shown in the attached screenshot from iOS search). I know one standard way is to configure CFBundleDocumentTypes in the Info.plist to declare supported document types, which allows the system to associate files with my app and display the icon in search. However, I'm looking for alternative approaches or additional configurations that could achieve this without relying solely on CFBundleDocumentTypes, or perhaps in combination with it for better integration. For context: This is for iOS 26+ (or latest versions). The goal is to have the app icon visible directly in Spotlight/Core Spotlight results when searching for files or content indexed by my app. I've tried basic NSUserActivity and CSSearchableItem indexing, but the icon doesn't always appear as expected for file associations. Has anyone implemented this through other means, like exported UTIs, Launch Services, or custom searchable attributes? Any code snippets, documentation links, or best practices would be appreciated! (Attach your Figure 2 screenshot here to illustrate the desired behavior, e.g., the .k file with the app icon in search results.)

I built a couple of app intents for macOS, which generally work great. However, I'm struggling with configuring an app intent that takes a parameter, so that it doesn't require the app to launch before presenting people with the list of options. If the app is running and I run the intent in Spotlight, I can see the message defined by the intent's parameterSummary and I can select a parameter from the list of entities. If the app is not running, it is launched first and only then the intent message fully populates in Spotlight and allows parameter selection. What I've tried: Support background or deferred mode in the intent. Conformed the entities to IndexedEntity. Conformed the entity query to EnumerableEntityQuery, implementing suggestedEntities and allEntities. Conformed the entity query to EntityStringQuery. Donated the intent to Spotlight on app launch. Donated the entities to Spotlight on app launch, both using indexSearchableItems and indexAppEntities. Not sure if both are required or if the latter is just a more convenient version of the former. Do I have to conform to or implement something else? Do I need to work with an app intent extension? If so, would I put all app intent code into the extension instead of the main app? Is this a system bug I should file?

I read this thread https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/788979 thoroughly, but I’m still confused regarding indexing files content. I'm building a notes app where the notes are stored in files. A file can contain several notes (think paragraphs). Each note and the file document itself have a unique ID, all embedded in the file. So far so good, when the user opens a file in the app, I index all the notes in it using several CSSearchableItem, one for each note. Each CSSearchableItem gets a unique ID based on the note and file IDs. The notes are then visible in Spotlight search and when the user taps one of them, the app is called with a Spotlight activity and I present the note. I learned that I should create a CSImportExtension to allow the system to index files when app is not running. But the only method is update(_:forFileAt:), which allows to provide back to the system a single attributes set. How can I index the notes in a file as separate items? What happens if an iCloud document file is edited remotely and the app is not running, or is editing another file? Does the system detect it and run CSImportExtension on the file? All the notes and documents IDs are unique, and when the user duplicates the document file from within the app, new unique IDs are set in the duplicate file. But the user can also duplicate files outside the app, in which case the IDs remain the same in the duplicate file. How does Spotlight react to indexing two distinct items, with the same ID, but different 'contentURL'? What if I index a note from a file, and set the current contentURL of the file, and then the user moves the file. Next time when I index a note from this file, Spotlight will get an item with the same uniqueIdentifier but with a different contentURL. Won't this confuse the system? How to handle the case of deleted files: Unless a file is pending editing, the app doesn’t know it has been deleted, so it won’t remove the corresponding items from Spotlight. I should mention that I use a Core Data database, which stores the mapping from file document IDs to file URLs, actually to bookmarks, so I can track the files even if the user renames or moves them.

After more than a year since the announcement, I'm still unable to get this feature working properly and wondering if there are known issues or missing implementation details. Current Setup: Device: iPhone 16 Pro Max iOS: 26 beta 3 Development: Tested on both Xcode 16 and Xcode 26 Implementation: Following the official documentation examples The Problem: Semantic search simply doesn't work. Lexical search functions normally, but enabling semantic search produces identical results to having it disabled. It's as if the feature isn't actually processing. Error Output (Xcode 26): [QPNLU][qid=5] Error Domain=com.apple.SpotlightEmbedding.EmbeddingModelError Code=-8007 "Text embedding generation timeout (timeout=100ms)" [CSUserQuery][qid=5] got a nil / empty embedding data dictionary [CSUserQuery][qid=5] semanticQuery failed to generate, using "(false)" In Xcode 16, there are no error messages at all - the semantic search just silently fails. Missing Resources: The sample application mentioned during the WWDC24 presentation doesn't appear to have been released, which makes it difficult to verify if my implementation is correct. Would really appreciate any guidance or clarification on the current status of this feature. Has anyone in the community successfully implemented this?

onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType, perform) works as expected on iOS when we search and select an item from Spotlight, but nothing happens when we do the same on a SwiftUI macOS app. var body: some Scene { WindowGroup { MyView() .onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType, perform: handleSpotlight) } } func handleSpotlight(_ userActivity: NSUserActivity) { // Is not called... } How can we respond to a user clicking a Spotlight result from our apps on macOS?

We are planning on renaming our app. The new name is not like the current name. It will be renamed in the App Store as well as the App display name. Yet, we still want new and existing users to be able to find the app by using the old name in search/spotlight under iOS. A great example of this is entering Twitter to find the X app and it shows up in the App section in the Spotlight search. Are there any guidelines, settings, or tricks for doing this? Some have suggested adding a Spotlight search term but that will not have it show up in the App section I fear.

On iOS 18, I'm trying to index documents in Spotlight using the new combination of AppIntents+IndexedEntity. However, I don't seem to be able to index the textContent of the document. Only the displayName seems to be indexed. As recommended, I start with the defaultAttributeSet: /// I call this function to index in Spotlight static func indexInSpotlight(document: Document) async { do { if let entity = document.toEntity { try await CSSearchableIndex.default().indexAppEntities([entity]) } } catch { DLog("Spotlight: could not index document: \(document.name ?? "")") } } /// This is the corresponding IndexedEntity with the attributeSet @available(iOS 18, *) extension DocumentEntity { var attributeSet: CSSearchableItemAttributeSet { let attributeSet = defaultAttributeSet attributeSet.title = title attributeSet.displayName = title attributeSet.textContent = docContent attributeSet.thumbnailData = thumbnailData attributeSet.kind = "document" attributeSet.creator = Constants.APP_NAME return attributeSet } } How can I have more that the displayName to be indexed? Thanks :-)

I am wanting to not only surface my content in the system-level Spotlight search results but also to utilize the same index for my in-app search screen. The very few examples or tutorials I could find all craft a CSSearchQuery string using just the "title" attribute. I can't figure out where to look to understand how to search across other attributes. My most pressing need is to be able to perform a CSSearchQuery looking for a search term in the .htmlContentData attribute. If I search for this term in the system search field it returns results, so I know it's being indexed. However when I use a search query (in my app) like htmlContentData == "someSearchTerm" I get zero results. This frustration has led to some more general questions like: How do you know what attribute names are available to use in the search query? Is it just a string literal that's exactly the same as the CSSearchableItemAttributeSet property in Swift? e.g. property .htmlContentData is referred to as "htmlContentData" in the query string? Also, is there any way to just search across all attributes with CSSearchQuery? Obviously using the system Spotlight search (from Home Screen) you don't have to specify if you're searching the title or htmlContentData, it just finds it in either. Yet for CSSearchQuery I have to know up-front which fields I want to look in?

I've been trying to add a CoreSpotlight indexer to my macOS application. The new template for the indexer uses the new appex CSImportExtension style importer. I've been following this -> https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corespotlight/csimportextension I changed the CSSupportedContentTypes in the Info.plist file to the correct file type uti. I added a dummy value into the attributes (see code below) - just setting contentDescription to 'noodle' (easy to search for) class ImportExtension: CSImportExtension {   override func update(_ attributes: CSSearchableItemAttributeSet, forFileAt: URL) throws {     // Add a dummy value, and see whether spotlight finds it     attributes.contentDescription = "noodle" } } I have a number of files on disk that match the uti (and can be found when I search by the file name) Yet, when I build and run my app, the a spotlight search for 'noodle' finds no results. Can anyone give me any advice? I cannot find any indication that the ImportExtension is called (although when I put a log message at the start of the update() call there's no message in the console which seems to suggest it's not being called). Is there any way of debugging this? Cheers and thanks -- Darren.

I've made working Spotlight Import Extension with in macOS 15.5 (24F74). mdimport confirm it's installed, and working. The problem is related to accessing data inside document bundles (package directory) class ImportExtension: CSImportExtension { override func update(_ attributes: CSSearchableItemAttributeSet, forFileAt url: URL) throws { // ERROR: The file "QuickSort.notepad" couldn't be opened because you don't have permission to view it. let fileWrapper = try FileWrapper(url: url) } } forFileAt url points to a bundle. In order to read the metadata the extension needs to load the bundle from url and access its content, however in the sandbox environment,t the url allows only access to the bundle directory itself in particular NSFileWrapper(url: url) fails with error "The file "name.extension" couldn't be opened because you don't have permission to view it.", and effectively prevent from providing useful metadata. Is there a way to access the Document Bundle content in order to read the metadata for Spotlight?

I have a SwiftUI document-based app that for the sake of this discussion stores accounting information: chart of accounts, transactions, etc. Each document is backed by a SwiftData DB. I'd like to incorporate search into the app so that users can find transactions matching certain criteria, so I went to Core Spotlight. Indexing & search within the app seem to work well. The issue is that Spotlight APIs appear to be App based & not Document based. I can't find a way to separate Spotlight data by document. I've tried having each document maintain a UUID as a document-specific identifier and include the identifier in every CSSearchableItem. When performing a query I filter the results with CSUserQueryContext.filterQueries that filter by the document identifier. That works to limit results to the specific file for search operations. Index updates via CSSearchableIndexDelegate.reindex* methods seem to be App-centric. A user may have file #1 open, but the delegate is being asked to update CSSearchableItems for IDs in other files. Is there a proper way to use Spotlight for in-app search with a document-based app? Is there a way to keep Spotlight-indexed data local within the app & not make it available across the system? I.e. I'd like to search within the app only. System-level searches should not surface this data.

I just adding a way to donate my app's data to Core Spotlight using CSSearchableIndex, but I'm finding that spotlight is only searching for the title of the CSSearchableItem I create. I know the index is working, because it always finds the item through the title property, but nothing else. This is how I'm creating the CSSearchableItem: - (CSSearchableItem *) createSearchableItem { CSSearchableItemAttributeSet* attributeSet = [[CSSearchableItemAttributeSet alloc] initWithContentType: UTTypeText]; attributeSet.title = [self titleForIndex]; attributeSet.displayName = [self titleForIndex]; attributeSet.contentDescription = [self contentDescriptionForIndex]; attributeSet.thumbnailData = [self thumbnailDataForIndex]; attributeSet.textContent = [self contentDescriptionForIndex]; CSSearchableItem *item = [[CSSearchableItem alloc] initWithUniqueIdentifier: [self referenceURLString] domainIdentifier:@"com.cjournal.cjournal-Logs" attributeSet:attributeSet]; item.expirationDate = [NSDate distantFuture]; return item; } There's a lot of confusing tips around which say specifying the 'textContent' should work, and/or setting the displayName is essential, but none of these are working. Is there something I'm missing with my setup? Thanks.

In IOS17 and IOS18, core spotlight can only match app contents by searching for the displayName, but cannot hit the contents by using keywords. Moreover, when matching the app content by searching for the "displayName", it requires inputting four consecutive characters to achieve a match.These issues did not occur in iOS 16. What is the reason for this? Here is my code. func addItemToIndex(_ item: QSpotlightItem) { let attributeSet = CSSearchableItemAttributeSet(contentType: .item) attributeSet.title = item.title attributeSet.displayName = item.title attributeSet.contentDescription = item.contentDescription attributeSet.keywords = item.keywords attributeSet.thumbnailData = item.thumbnailImage attributeSet.contactKeywords = item.keywords attributeSet.supportsNavigation = true let searchableItem = CSSearchableItem(uniqueIdentifier: item.id, domainIdentifier: "xxx", attributeSet: attributeSet) searchableItem.expirationDate = .distantFuture CSSearchableIndex.default().indexSearchableItems([searchableItem]) { error in if let error = error { } else { } } }

In Core Spotlight, one can only index content by using title or displayName, and it requires four consecutive characters for indexing. These situations occurred in iOS 17 and 18. In iOS 16, I could not only index content by title or displayName, but also by keyword. Moreover, there was no restriction of requiring four consecutive characters. I could index my app content by simply inputting one character. Here is my code.https://github.com/kritto1/corespotlight-bug-test/tree/main @available(iOS 14, *) func addItemToIndex(_ item: QSpotlightItem) { let attributeSet = CSSearchableItemAttributeSet(contentType: .item) attributeSet.title = item.title attributeSet.displayName = item.title attributeSet.contentDescription = item.contentDescription attributeSet.keywords = item.keywords attributeSet.thumbnailData = item.thumbnailImage attributeSet.contactKeywords = item.keywords attributeSet.supportsNavigation = true let searchableItem = CSSearchableItem(uniqueIdentifier: item.id, domainIdentifier: "com.qunar.iphone.spotlight", attributeSet: attributeSet) searchableItem.expirationDate = .distantFuture CSSearchableIndex.default().indexSearchableItems([searchableItem]) { error in if let error = error { } else { } } } @available(iOS 14, *) func addToSpotlightIndex() { let spotlightHotel = QSpotlightItem( id: "corespotlight_1", title: "查询酒店住宿", contentDescription: "", thumbnailImage: UIImage(named: "img2")?.pngData(), keywords: ["酒店", "住宿"] ) addItemToIndex(spotlightHotel) let spotlightFlight = QSpotlightItem( id: "corespotlight_2", title: "查询和预订机票", contentDescription: "", thumbnailImage: UIImage(named: "img2")?.pngData(), keywords: ["查询", "预订", "机票"] ) addItemToIndex(spotlightFlight) let spotlightSight = QSpotlightItem( id: "corespotlight_3", title: "查询预订门票", contentDescription: "", thumbnailImage: UIImage(named: "img2")?.pngData(), keywords: ["查询", "预订", "门票"] ) addItemToIndex(spotlightSight) }

Hi all, has anybody found the trick how to get SwiftData working with SpotLight Search? Setting the attribute "spotlight" in the Model definition seems to do nothing at all, as pointed out by Paul Hudson in his new book as well (https://www.hackingwithswift.com/quick-start/swiftdata/how-to-index-swiftdata-objects-in-spotlight) Thanks a lot!