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I frequently use the command-spacebar command in the OS to search for something, independent of any application. As of installing MacOS Big Sur, I find that when I type in this spotlight context, the default result is a web search result with the query string.

A typical search: I want to launch a file matching the name I type which is by default associated with an application. Example: <thename>.jpg.
No matter what the actual matching filetype is for the search, I always see a little firefox icon with a result to the left of <thename>jpg, as well as the valid result (with the correct icon) below it. I am including an image for reference.

Is there a way to simply remove web searches from these results? I find that if I type thename.jpg kind:jpg I get what I am looking for but it seems verbose, not to mention the query taking quite a bit longer to return. I disabled the option Siri Suggestions from the Search Results area of Spotlight preferences long ago. This makes no difference.

enter image description here

jml
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1 Answers1

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Disabling Siri Suggestions does not help, and in fact I found this comment :

Well, I have switched off EVERYTHING in the Spotlight settings. Guess what remained in the results: The web search.

This problem does not seem to be solvable by user settings.

A workaround that worked for one poster was :

For now I have resolved this by replacing Spotlight with Alfred (free). I've configured it to replace my spotlight keyboard shortcut and also customized it to not include web results. It's actually quite a bit faster than Spotlight, so for now I'm quite happy.

A later poster answered :

I tried that, but Alfred doesn't actually find a file when I search by name, and I'm looking at that file! It finds other files in the same directory, so clearly this isn't a good solution, at least for me.

The workaround can perhaps be improved, but I'm not in a position to test it.

harrymc
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