How to reset Mac OS X's Spotlight data cache and re-index your hard drive
Apple's Spotlight technology automatically indexes all content on an OS X system to allow for instant search results based on documents (including their content), pictures, music, applications, emails, calendar entries, system preferences, bookmarks, web history, etc.
Occasionally Spotlight's metadata stores can become corrupted and cause searches to take much longer than necessary. To reset the data cache for your Mac's hard drive, open a Terminal window and enter this command:
sudo mdutil -E /
To force Spotlight to immediately start re-indexing your hard drive (this might take a few hours and is probably best left to run overnight), enter this command:
sudo mdutil -i on /
Further information on mdutil's usage can be found on its man page by entering this command:
man mdutil
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