During its WWDC 2025 conference on Monday, Apple announced some of the biggest updates to Spotlight, its search function on Mac devices, that it has ever made. On macOS Tahoe, Spotlight can be used to launch shortcuts and perform hundreds of actions, such as writing emails, setting reminders, and playing podcasts.
Apple is modernizing Spotlight as chat apps like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini grow in popularity. People all over the world are using command line interfaces to perform more of their tasks, and it looks like Apple is updating Spotlight to be part of this trend. The company claims that Spotlight is becoming the fastest way to view all the content on your Mac.
Spotlight is getting a visual redesign that makes it easier for users to browse apps, files, clipboard history, and more. All of these results are now listed together and “intelligently” ranked based on relevance to users.
Apple has also introduced Quick Keys: short strings of characters that take users directly to specific apps or actions. Mac users can type “SM” to send a message or “AR” to add a new reminder. Users can also assign shortcuts to custom functions in Spotlight. Developers can also make their apps discoverable in Spotlight using the App Intents API.
In one of the demonstrations, an Apple executive showed how users can send an entire email from Spotlight by filling in parameters such as the recipient, subject, and message, and even clicking “send” without switching to another program. Whether users will actually be able to send emails through the updated Spotlight in macOS Tahoe remains to be seen.
Apple says Spotlight is now integrated with Apple Intelligence to be contextually aware. The search function on the device will now suggest actions that users usually perform, as well as based on what users are currently working on.
The Spotlight update was one of the many macOS updates unveiled at Apple’s WWDC conference. Apple also announced that macOS will receive a new real-time tracking feature that integrates with the iPhone, as well as an updated “liquid glass” software design.
