Customize Spotlight Categories on macOS 13

Customizing the categories that appear in your Spotlight search results on macOS 13 (macOS Ventura) allows you to declutter your queries and find relevant files, apps, and web results faster. This guide explains how to navigate the redesigned System Settings interface to enable or disable specific search categories, as well as how to exclude specific folders from indexing altogether.

Steps to Customize Spotlight Search Categories

In macOS 13, Apple replaced the classic System Preferences with System Settings, changing where Spotlight preferences are located. Follow these steps to adjust your search categories:

1. Click the Apple menu () in the top-left corner of your screen and select System Settings.
2. In the left sidebar, scroll down and click on Siri & Spotlight.
3. Scroll down the right pane until you find the Search Results section.
4. You will see a list of categories that Spotlight indexes, including Applications, Documents, Folders, Images, Mail & Messages, Music, and Safari Bookmarks.
5. Check the box next to any category you want to appear in your Spotlight search results.
6. Uncheck the box next to any category you wish to hide from your search results.

Your selections take effect immediately without requiring a restart.

How to Exclude Specific Locations (Spotlight Privacy)

If you want to prevent Spotlight from searching specific folders or entire external drives regardless of the category, use the Privacy setting:

1. In the same Siri & Spotlight settings panel, scroll to the very bottom.
2. Click the Spotlight Privacy... button.
3. Click the plus (+) button to open Finder, select the folder or drive you wish to exclude, and click Choose. Alternatively, drag and drop the folder directly into the list.
4. Click Done to save your changes.

Spotlight will immediately stop searching the specified locations and will not display their contents in any category.