Protect Mac search privacy: Easily turn off Apple search data sharing

By default, search queries you enter in Spotlight, Safari, Siri, Lookup, and #images for Mac will be sent to Apple. While this information is anonymous and will not reveal your identity, Apple also says it is used to improve search results, but many Mac users may not want to share this search information with Apple at all. In addition, privacy-conscious users may find this method of data collection undesirable.

Fortunately, you can easily turn off the Help Apple Improve Search settings on your Mac, preventing Safari, Siri, Spotlight, Lookup, and #images searches from sharing your search information with Apple.

Spotlight is one of the best features on your Mac, with powerful local and external information search capabilities. While you may have mastered Spotlight’s keyboard shortcuts and natural language search techniques, you may not know that by default, the data entered Spotlight will be shared with Apple. If you want to stop data sharing, we will walk you through the change process step by step and explain in detail what information and data Spotlight and Mac search features share with Apple.

How to stop sharing search queries on Mac with Apple

1. From the ? Apple menu, go to System Settings.
2. Go to "Spotlight".
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the Spotlight settings, find the Help Apple Improve Search settings, turn it off to disable sharing Mac search queries with Apple.

Once this feature is turned off, you will no longer share search data from your Mac with Apple.

I personally have been turning off this feature in Spotlight, but this is one of many privacy and data sharing settings enabled by default, which many Mac users may not be aware of, let alone realizing that they are sharing this kind of search data with Apple. When I saw a recent post from obdev.at (via mjtsai), I remembered this setup and how many Mac users are not aware of this data sharing, which noted: “Apple has recently shown a clear tendency to collect, collect, transmit, and sometimes even store privacy-sensitive data – despite the repeated emphasis on the importance of protecting such data and ensuring it is only retained on the user’s device.”

What information is shared? The Spotlight search settings tell us, let's take a look next.

What information does Mac Spotlight and Search share with Apple?

Apple says that the following types of information are shared, but will not be associated with your email address, Apple ID, or Apple account:

• Your search query
• Your location
• Topics of interest
• Visual search query
• Context information related to search queries
• Suggestions you selected
• The application you are using
• Related device usage data
• Subscription Services
• Search Engine Recommendations

If you click on the small blue text "About Search and Privacy" you will find the full details, which we have repeated as follows for the convenience of reading:

About Search and Privacy on Mac About Data Sharing

The full text of the "About Search and Privacy" screen related to this setting is as follows:

When you use a lookup or a visual lookup, when you type in a search, a Safari search, a #images search in a message, or when you call Spotlight, limited information will be sent to Apple to provide the latest suggestions. No information sent to Apple will identify you and is associated with an identifier generated by a device that rotates randomly for 15 minutes. This information may include location, topics of interest (for example, cooking or basketball), your search query (including visual search queries), contextual information related to your search query, suggestions you have selected, the applications you are using, and the relevant device usage data. This information does not include search results that display files or content on your device. If you subscribe to a music or video subscription service, the name and subscription type of those services may be sent to Apple. Your account name, number, and password will not be sent to Apple.

You can also use Siri to search, such as asking Siri to find common sense or perform operations such as getting routes. When you use Siri, text records and other data for your request may be sent to Apple to process your request and may be stored. You can learn how Siri processes your data by going to Settings > Apple Smart and Siri.

Information sent to Apple related to your search is used to process your requests and develop and improve search results, such as using your search query to fine-tune the search model. It will not be associated with your Apple account or email address.

Aggregation information can be used to improve other Apple products and services. Apple may also send limited, randomly sampled search queries to search tools to evaluate and improve the performance and quality of searches.

Search Engine Recommendations in Safari

Safari has a single field for search and web address, so you can browse the web from one convenient place. Once search engine suggestions are enabled, Safari will request suggestions from the search engine of your choice based on what you typed.

Preloaded Popular Clicks in Safari

Once preloading popular clicks is enabled, Safari will start loading web pages in the background once Safari determines popular clicks based on your bookmarks and browsing history. If you disable this option, the page will load normally.

You can choose and control

If you don't want your search query to be stored by Apple and used for improvement search, you can disable Improved Search by going to Settings > Search and clicking Turn Off Improved Search. If you enable "Improved Siri and Dictation", the searches you made through Siri will still be stored and used to improve Siri. You can disable "Improve Siri and Dictation" by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Analysis & Improvement and clicking Turn off "Improve Siri and Dictation".

If you do not want to use web-based content and search results, you can disable them by going to System Settings > Spotlight and deselecting Sites.

You can disable Safari suggestions by going to Safari > Settings > Search and deselecting "Include Safari suggestions".

You can disable the searched location service by going to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Privacy > Location Services, and then click on Details next to System Services and turn off Suggestions & Search. If you turn off location services on your device, your location will not be sent to Apple.

Apple may work with trusted third-party service providers to process and store information sent to Apple.

By using Siri Search Recommendations, you agree and allow Apple, its subsidiaries and agents to transmit, collect, maintain, process and use this information. All information collected by Apple will always be processed in accordance with Apple's privacy policy, which can be found at www.apple.com/privacy.

Whether you are willing to share this information with Apple is entirely up to you. Many Mac users won't mind, especially if they feel that sharing this data can improve their Mac experience, or help Apple do the data work, but on the other hand, many privacy advocates are less keen on sharing any data when they can opt out or disable it. What works for you depends on you, but you should at least understand this setup and what your Mac is doing.

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