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Bruce Michel Author

Level 1

124 points

How to exclude some external volumes from Spotlight

I want to exclude my external backups (Carbon Copy Cloner 5) from Spotlight to avoid the common situation that I cannot eject the disk after the backup is done because the disk is "busy". Also faster.

I can exclude one volume from a two-volume disk in the usual way in Preferences Privacy. However the second volume gives me an error. For another disk, both volumes fail.

I used mdutil to get the following where disk 1 is in the Privacy list, but not sure how to proceed.

Michel-iMac:~ maintainer$ mdutil -s /Volumes/Backup\ 1\ -\ Data

/System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/Backup 1 - Data:

Indexing and searching disabled.

Michel-iMac:~ maintainer$ mdutil -s /Volumes/Backup\ 3\ -\ Data

/System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/Backup 3 - Data:

Error: unknown indexing state.

The '-i off' or '-E' options fail with the same error message.

Posted on Sep 5, 2021 11:21 AM

Similar questions

4 replies

6x6

Level 6

16,064 points

Sep 7, 2021 9:08 AM in response to Bruce Michel

I don't see why not as you are only deleting the index. But from what you are telling me, you've already tried the -E option. I've been doing some light research and some people were able to reset Spotlight by deleting the content of the .Spotlight-V100 folder.

You could look at:

I'm not completely sure but I think from what I've read that those folders may also be on the external drives (besides the one on your main drive). It's a little murky and frankly a little bit out of my league, to be honest.

6x6

Level 6

16,064 points

Sep 5, 2021 12:34 PM in response to Bruce Michel

Would this article help: Change Spotlight preferences on Mac - Apple Support?

Barney-15E

Level 10

117,214 points

Sep 7, 2021 2:48 PM in response to Bruce Michel

Try showing the hidden files (cmd-shift-. ) and delete the .Spotlight-v100 folder from the volume that won't work.

It was only a single-volume external drive where I had a similar problem. Deleting the Spotlight folder allowed me to configure it for Spotlight. I would imagine you might have the same success. Also, that folder will get recreated even if you exclude it as that is where it stores the exclusion.

Bruce Michel Author

Level 1

124 points

Sep 6, 2021 5:50 PM in response to 6x6

No. The issue is that these steps within the Preference app do not work and result in mystifying messages.

Would it be wise to delete using mdutil?

How to exclude some external volumes from Spotlight