Many users of macOS and iOS love one feature in particular: Spotlight search. Spotlight keeps an index of all files, contacts, contents, and more on your Mac, and it's been in iOS too for a while now. With iOS 9, Apple made it possible for developers to index the contents of their apps, enabling users to discover app contents right from the Spotlight search they know and love. Ever since opening up Spotlight on iOS to developers, Apple has been pushing to make Spotlight better, more relevant, more impactful, and more helpful to users. In this chapter, we'll explore what Spotlight can do for your apps and how you can make use of the CoreSpotlight APIs to provide your users with a fantastic search experience that helps them find and navigate your app.

This chapter covers the following topics:

Understanding Spotlight search
Adding your app contents to the Spotlight index
Handling search-result selection
Adhering to Spotlight best practices
Increasing your app's visibility with Universal Links

Let's not waste any time and jump right into Spotlight!