Update: FixedMy In this order: sudo mdutil -i off / sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight* sudo mdutil -i on / sudo mdutil -E / Reboot I am not sure if any of the other steps I took below helped. I will probably remove the wheel group from my account as that is reserved for root. MacBook Pro is managed by the university and they use Microsoft AD for login. After updating to Sonoma spotlight is fully broken. When I open it, it hangs for a few seconds before accepting input. Then another hang after 1 letter. I try to dismiss with ESC or click away and that hangs about 4 seconds too. I see other comments mentioning MS AD and issues and user accounts that are tied to a network and not local. I have tried to use UI UI to rebuild spotlight, and also the commands listed here in the thread: "sudo mdutil -E /" "sudo mdutil -i off " and "sudo mdutil -i on /" I also have added my user to the wheel group upon seeing that listed on .Spotlight-V100 directory, and seeing a comment here. I also removed the plist file Library/Preferences/com.apple.Spotlight.plist but not com.apple.IMCoreSpotlight.plist No fix so far. Waiting to see if it rebuilds or something. I am using the system about 24hours after the update to Sonoma. I would note here a second issue, unrelated but fixed by updating OS. My iCloud Keychain was empty just before the Sonoma update. That has to do with the default login keychain having a different password than my network MS AD managed password. The setting to update the password is disabled, I assume by our IT dept. Good news is that after updating to Sonoma and rebooting the system caught the mismatch and offered to allow me to update the login keychain password or delete it; I updated the password and now iCloud Keychain works as before.