Change Spotlight preferences on Mac
On your Mac, use Spotlight System Preferences to change the categories that appear in Spotlight search results, and to exclude specific folders or disks from Spotlight searches.
To change these preferences, choose Apple menu 
> System Preferences, then click Spotlight.
Open Spotlight preferences for me
Search Results options
Option | Description |
|---|---|
List of categories | Select the categories you want to include in Spotlight search results; deselect those you don’t want to include. By default, Spotlight results include Spotlight Suggestions. |
Allow Spotlight Suggestions in Look up | Select the checkbox to show Spotlight Suggestions in results when you look up a word. |
If you don’t want your Look up search queries and Spotlight Suggestions usage data sent to Apple, deselect the “Allow Spotlight Suggestions in Look up” checkbox, then in the list deselect the Spotlight Suggestions checkbox. When the checkboxes are not selected, Spotlight searches only the contents of your Mac, and Look up searches only the dictionaries on your Mac.
Privacy options
Option | Description |
|---|---|
List of locations | Locations on your Mac excluded from Spotlight searches. |
Add | To exclude a location from Spotlight searches, click the Add button If you exclude a Time Machine backup disk, you will continue to see messages that Spotlight is indexing it. This indexing is necessary for Time Machine to function properly and can’t be disabled. Spotlight does exclude from searches items stored on the backup disk that are not part of a Time Machine backup. Important: If you exclude certain files and folders you may not be notified when updates become available for some apps. If you exclude your entire internal disk, you won’t be notified about any updates. |
Remove | To include a location in Spotlight searches again, select the folder or disk in the list, then click the Remove button |
To change keyboard shortcuts for Spotlight, click Keyboard Shortcuts at the bottom of the pane.
You can turn off Location Services for Spotlight Suggestions in Security & Privacy preferences. If you turn off Location Services on your Mac, your precise location won’t be sent to Apple. See Turn off Spotlight Suggestions on Mac.