`update`: false-positive "not indexed in Spotlight" warning for Xcode despite full App Store metadata

[regevbr]

Problem

mas update outputs the "not indexed in Spotlight" warning for /Applications/Xcode.app on every invocation, even though:

1. Xcode has full kMDItemAppStore* metadata in Spotlight.
2. mas list and mas upgrade themselves work correctly (Xcode is not included in the output, suggesting mas's internal Spotlight query doesn't see it — yet the filesystem walk does, hence the warning).

The auto-indexing nudge mas performs has no effect — re-running mas update reproduces the warning every time. mdimport, mdimport -r, and reimporting the Application importer all fail to fix it.

Reproduction

$ mas upgrade
Warning: Found a likely App Store app that is not indexed in Spotlight in /Applications/Xcode.app

         Indexing now; will likely complete sometime after mas exits

         Disable auto-indexing via: export MAS_NO_AUTO_INDEX=1

Diagnosis

The root cause appears to be a macOS Spotlight scoping bug for the Xcode bundle. Unscoped mdfind returns Xcode; scoped queries under either /Applications or /System/Volumes/Data/Applications do not:

$ mdfind "kMDItemAppStoreAdamID == 497799835"
/Applications/Xcode.app

$ mdfind -onlyin /Applications "kMDItemAppStoreAdamID == '*'"
/Applications/Amphetamine.app
/Applications/Perplexity.app
/Applications/Keynote Creator Studio.app
/Applications/Numbers Creator Studio.app
/Applications/Pages Creator Studio.app
# Xcode missing

$ mdfind -onlyin /System/Volumes/Data/Applications "kMDItemAppStoreAdamID == '*'"
# same result, Xcode missing

If mas v7 uses NSMetadataQuery scoped to /Applications (or the firmlinked equivalent) to enumerate App Store apps, Xcode will reliably be missed — but the filesystem walk for Contents/_MASReceipt/receipt will reliably find it. That mismatch is the warning trigger.

Environment

• mas 7.0.0 (Homebrew, Apple Silicon)
• macOS 26.5 (25F71), arm64
• Xcode 26.5 (17F42), installed from the App Store
• /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/_MASReceipt/receipt: 4837 bytes, present

Selected Xcode Spotlight metadata

kMDItemAppStoreAdamID         = 497799835
kMDItemAppStoreHasReceipt     = 1
kMDItemAppStoreIsAppleSigned  = 1
kMDItemAppStorePurchaseDate   = 2026-05-12 00:20:55 +0000
kMDItemAppStoreReceiptType    = "Production"
kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier     = "com.apple.dt.Xcode"
kMDItemContentType            = "com.apple.application-bundle"
kMDItemPath                   = "/System/Volumes/Data/Applications/Xcode.app"

mdutil -s / and mdutil -s /System/Volumes/Data/Applications both report indexing enabled.

Suggested fix

Since this is a macOS limitation mas likely can't fully work around, a couple of options:

• Fall back to an unscoped NSMetadataQuery (filtering paths to the Applications folders in code) when a _MASReceipt/receipt is found on disk but the scoped query doesn't return the bundle — this would have found Xcode in our case.
• Suppress the warning after the auto-indexing attempt has been made once per run, since for cases like Xcode the indexing nudge will never succeed and the warning is purely noise.
• At minimum, add a --quiet / MAS_SUPPRESS_INDEX_WARNINGS=1 knob — MAS_NO_AUTO_INDEX=1 only disables the indexing attempt, not the warning text.

Happy to test patches.

[regevbr]

Likely related to #1232 (closed as fixed in 7.0.0). This appears to be a distinct case still present on 7.0.0:

• In Unindexed apps #1232 the four affected apps had stale/empty receipts and the warning resolved after re-installation / re-indexing nudges.
• Here the Xcode _MASReceipt/receipt is non-empty (4837 bytes), the full kMDItemAppStore* metadata is present, and yet the scoped mdfind -onlyin /Applications query never returns Xcode — no amount of mdimport / importer reload changes that. So the 7.0.0 fix doesn't cover this scenario.

Filing separately rather than reopening #1232 since the failure mode (scoped vs. unscoped Spotlight result mismatch on a fully-indexed bundle) looks different from the receipt-state issue resolved there, but happy to consolidate if you'd prefer.

[rgoldberg]

Thanks for reporting this, and for all the detail.

I haven't had a chance to read everything you wrote, but I, too, have recently experienced problems with Spotlight search scopes.

Spotlight now returns data to me for apps outside of the search scope, instead of failing to return data for those onside the search scope.

This occurs both in mas code and using mdfind.

Can you provide me with the relevant output of mas list --json? You can obtain the path to each app from that. It's likely that the Xcode that is included in the normal tabular list output is from some folder outside of /Applications.

I will try to work on this soon, but I might not be able to for a bit.

Can you please report this as a Spotlight bug to Apple, if you haven't done so already?

[regevbr]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Interesting — the symptom you describe (results returned from outside the scope) is the opposite direction of what I'm hitting (a result that should be inside the scope is missing). Same Spotlight scoping subsystem, different failure mode.

mas list --json output

Xcode is entirely absent from mas list --json. Only 5 apps appear: Amphetamine, Keynote, Numbers, Pages, Perplexity. Here are the path and bundleID fields from each:

Amphetamine         com.if.Amphetamine          /System/Volumes/Data/Applications/Amphetamine.app
Keynote             com.apple.Keynote           /System/Volumes/Data/Applications/Keynote Creator Studio.app
Numbers             com.apple.Numbers           /System/Volumes/Data/Applications/Numbers Creator Studio.app
Pages               com.apple.Pages             /System/Volumes/Data/Applications/Pages Creator Studio.app
Perplexity          ai.perplexity.mac           /System/Volumes/Data/Applications/Perplexity.app

No Xcode entry at all. So mas list and mas upgrade are consistent with each other — both fail to see Xcode via Spotlight. The warning specifically comes from the upgrade path's filesystem walk finding the _MASReceipt/receipt that list doesn't surface.

Confirmed: only one Xcode bundle on disk

$ find / -name "Xcode.app" -maxdepth 4 -type d 2>/dev/null
/Applications/Xcode.app

$ mdfind "kMDItemAppStoreAdamID == '*'"
/Applications/Amphetamine.app
/Applications/Xcode.app
/Applications/Perplexity.app
/Applications/Keynote Creator Studio.app
/Applications/Numbers Creator Studio.app
/Applications/Pages Creator Studio.app

$ mdfind -onlyin /Applications "kMDItemAppStoreAdamID == '*'"
# Xcode missing
$ mdfind -onlyin /System/Volumes/Data/Applications "kMDItemAppStoreAdamID == '*'"
# Xcode missing

So this isn't an out-of-scope duplicate masquerading as Xcode — there's literally one Xcode bundle in /Applications, and Spotlight returns it for unscoped queries but consistently drops it from scoped queries on either the firmlinked or real path. Stress-testing with -onlyin "/System/Volumes/Data" or higher-level scopes doesn't help either; only the unscoped query returns it.

Apple bug report

Will do — I'll file via Feedback Assistant today and post the FB# back here once I have it.

No rush on a fix; the workaround (MAS_NO_AUTO_INDEX=1 + accepting the warning, or wrapping mas to filter stderr) is liveable in the meantime.

[rgoldberg]

Thanks for the detail.

I misunderstood your comment that list works correctly; I thought that it meant that list output included Xcode, not that it was consistent with update.

I missed your subsequent explanation that list didn't output Xcode because I only skimmed your text because I have a massive headache right now; reading (especially on a screen) greatly exacerbates it, so I was trying to get the gist of your situation without being able to properly read all of it or hold what I read in my head.

Sorry for the headache-induced confusion.

[regevbr]

No worries at all — feel better soon. Posting the Apple bug number for your records and any future cross-reference:

FB22768981 — "Spotlight: scoped mdfind query under /Applications misses a fully-indexed bundle (Xcode)"

No urgency on the mas side — happy to retest whenever you're ready to take a look.