andreoliwa

Hi all, just posting what worked for me, it might help anyone else.
TL;DR: run the commands in the box below, then "Rebuild macOS Metadata".
 
I'm also using Alfred (4.2.1 [1187]) and I installed Big Sur (11.0.1) recently.
I was not seeing applications nor folders in Alfred.
The "File Search Troubleshooting" showed similar responses as in the posts above: "Direct metadata is missing, this file is likely not indexed by macOS".
 
I tried these solutions from posts above with no luck:
Alfred Preferences / Advanced / Clear Application Cache Alfred Preferences / Advanced / Rebuild macOS Metadata Remove and add back folders in System Preferences / Spotlight / Privacy These commands worked for me:
sudo mdutil -a -i off sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist sudo mdutil -a -i on I found the solution in this article: How to fix Spotlight search not working on macOS.

This was the output:
$ sudo mdutil -a -i off /: 2020-11-24 21:16:03.161 mdutil[65865:26582587] mdutil disabling Spotlight: / -> kMDConfigSearchLevelFSSearchOnly Indexing disabled. /System/Volumes/Data: Error: invalid operation. Error: unknown indexing state. ✘-1 ~ $ sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist ✔ ~ $ sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist ✔ ~ $ sudo mdutil -a -i on /: Indexing enabled. /System/Volumes/Data: Indexing enabled. Just to be sure, I ran: Alfred Preferences / Advanced / Rebuild macOS Metadata.
Now everything works.
 
I don't know if it's related, but I have Apple's System Integrity Protection turned off.
 
I didn't want to format and reinstall Big Sur to solve the problem.
I refuse to format and reinstall fresh unless it's the very last resort.
 
Thank you all!