Instead of logging out and back in, it’s possible to relaunch Spotlight from the Finder, as demonstrated here with the aid of the log. And it might be useful too.
Spotlight
When Spotlight can’t find the files you expect it to, it could be that they weren’t indexed, or that Spotlight’s search has failed to find their index entries. Here’s how to tell those apart and work out what went wrong.
The Preview pane in Finder windows can show a comprehensive list of metadata, or a shortened list you can customise in Preview Options. Here’s how to use it and how it can provide further information.
Normally, the x.1 update fixes many of the bugs from the first release. But in Tahoe, a crop of fresh bugs have been included. Here are some of them, and how they have arisen.
In macOS Mojave, Apple changed the way that Spotlight indexes the contents of plain text files. That introduced a bug that prevents indexing of any of the contents of files starting with certain characters. For many Macs, that bug won’t ever be fixed.
For the last 10 years, macOS has relied on Uniform Type Identifiers to recognise different types of files, for opening in apps, QuickLook, Spotlight and in other features.
From Ventura (if not earlier) to Tahoe, Spotlight appears unable to index text files that start with two specific letters. Although those are exceedingly rare, this could still catch you out.
Notes on how search depends on index structure, effects of language on different types of search term, and the benefits and limitations of search methods.
Running the basic test on a folder in your Home folder, extending that to documents that use a custom mdimporter, to other volumes and locations, and other search terms.
This can now test and search any regular volume that’s connected to your Mac and mounted in /Volumes, using either NSMetadataQuery in the API, or mdfind instead.
The Eclectic Light Company 