Repairing a faulty Spotlight index

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To repair a faulty Spotlight index, take the following steps

  1. Open System Preferences and click Spotlight
  2. Click the Privacy tab
  3. Drag a folder or hard drive list into Spotlight window
  4. Remove the folder or hard drive that was just added

This will cause Spotlight to clear the existing index and begin re-indexing the folder or hard drive.

Note that you may only be able to drag folders into the privacy panel if they reside on Macintosh-formatted (HFS+) disks. Doing so with Windows (FAT, NTFS) disks is not yet supported. Additionally, if Spotlight is currently "busy", you won't be able to add folders. Check the Activity Monitor for mdimport.

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