How to disable Siri suggestions on Mac

Updated 2026 · 4 min read

Siri suggestions pop up in Spotlight, Look Up, and various app search bars — showing web results, news articles, and App Store recommendations before you've finished typing. If you'd rather Spotlight stay local and quiet, two settings cover it.

What Siri suggestions actually are

When you open Spotlight and start typing, macOS can show results from two sources: your local files and apps, and Siri's internet-backed suggestions — web pages, news articles, maps, App Store results, and more. These suggestions come from Apple's servers and are tied to your Apple ID. They're convenient if you want Spotlight to behave like a web search box. They're noise if you just want to launch apps and find files.

Separately, Siri data sharing controls whether Siri learns from your usage patterns to improve its suggestions over time. These are two different switches — both worth turning off if privacy matters to you.

Where to find the settings

Open System Settings → Siri & Spotlight.
Under the Spotlight section, uncheck Siri Suggestions and Suggestions & Recent Searches.
Scroll up to the Siri section and turn off Improve Siri & Dictation to stop usage data sharing.

These three checkboxes cover different surfaces — unchecking all of them is the thorough approach.

The Terminal commands

To opt out of Siri data sharing from the command line, open Terminal and run:

# opt out of Siri data sharing (2 = opted out)
defaults write com.apple.assistant.support 'Siri Data Sharing Opt-In Status' -int 2

To disable Siri suggestions in Spotlight specifically:

# hide Siri suggestions in Spotlight results
defaults write com.apple.suggestions.client shouldShowSuggestionsInSpotlight -bool false

To undo either change:

# re-enable Siri data sharing
defaults write com.apple.assistant.support 'Siri Data Sharing Opt-In Status' -int 1

# re-enable Siri suggestions in Spotlight
defaults write com.apple.suggestions.client shouldShowSuggestionsInSpotlight -bool true

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What you lose when you turn this off

Spotlight won't show web results, news, or App Store suggestions while you type. It will still find your local files, apps, contacts, calendar events, emails, and anything on your Mac. For most power users this is an improvement — the local results load instantly and aren't cluttered with irrelevant web content.

Siri suggestions in apps

Some apps (Safari, Mail, Messages) also show Siri suggestions — for example, contact suggestions when composing an email. These are controlled separately under Privacy & Security → Siri & Search, where you can disable Siri from learning from each individual app.