Learn what to do if your iPhone or iPad running iOS 27 or iPadOS 27 is stuck on the “Optimizing Search and Siri” (formerly “Indexing in Progress”) status, and you notice overall system slowness.
After updating your iPhone or iPad to the new iOS 27 or iPadOS 27 you may see an additional option at the top of the Settings app that reads:
Optimizing Search and Siri
You can use your iPhone as you normally would. Indexing improves search, starting with your most recent data, and can take a while. Longer charging sessions help indexing go faster. Learn More.
Tapping “Learn more…” takes you to an Apple Support page that’s about Spotlight indexing and search results on Apple devices. In early iOS 27 builds, it took you to an Apple Support page that talked about rebuilding the Spotlight index on Mac.
Aside from this message, you may also noticed that simple things like searching for a file or finding a contact in the Phone app may take longer than it should. This is likely because your device is still indexing the files. Here’s what can help.
But before you get to the solutions, remember that this is not a new thing. iOS has since always worked in the background to index files so systemwide search can function well. iOS 27 has simply started using an even deeper level of search for improved Siri experience and has now started disclosing the fact that your device is performing this action. Earlier you had no way to tell, even though it happened silently in the background.
Leave it charging overnight
This is the most effective and the official solution that even Apple mentions in the banner itself.
Simply plug your iPhone into a charger and leave it unused overnight so indexing can happen smoothly. You may have to repeat this for a few days.
Don’t force restart your iPhone
Force restarting your iPhone may cause the entire indexing process to reinitiate. So don’t do that unless, of course, your device has frozen or becomes unresponsive. Normal restarting should not be an issue.
Clean up your photo library, Mail app, etc.
iOS 27 indexing will take a long time if you have several thousand photos & videos, texts, and emails across multiple email accounts in the Apple Mail app.
You can help accelerate the process by deleting media you don’t need. Another tip is to remove email accounts you don’t use but have added to the Mail app. You can just re-add the account later.
Can you check the exact status of your indexing process?
Yes. iOS may sometimes show you a percentage, telling you how far it has finished indexing.
But remember that indexing may happen again once you install the next incremental update, like iOS 27.0.1.
Note: The initial version of iOS 27 developer beta allowed seeing how far indexing has completed in the Apple Console app on Mac, but that’s no longer possible.
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