Spotlight indexing takes way too long

To ds store: You say "Once everything is indexed, only the new stuff or changes gets indexed, and that goes rather quickly."

All of this is true... except that part about "quickly". You are simply explaining the theory of Spotlight. We don't really need this explanation. We need the real answer to the question "Is it possible to stop/interrupt or delay the spotlight indexing?" That is how we can take control of this beast. I have seen this "re-indexing" take hours with the spinning color disk icon every time you click the Spotlight icon to see what's up. I am watching this process as I type this. The two volumes that Spotlight is dealing with have no added files --- oops, my typing got highjacked by the Spotlight indexing, now I'm back -- They were simply disconnected after a complete indexing and connected again later.

We really do need a way to temporarily cancel Spotlight when work needs to be done, and let it start again at bedtime or whenever. Maybe someone knows -- oops, another highjacking delay by Spotlight-- of a script we can apply that will interrupt Spotlight and restart it without doing a bunch of System Preferences checkmarks and restarts.

Twenty minutes now and still reindexing, still color wheeling both of these volumes neither of which have any changes whatever.

Hello:

Open system preferences>spotlight. You may exclude things from being indexed there. I exclude my external hard drives.

The first time Spotlight indexes it will take quite awhile. After that, the time should be minimal.

Barry

If the Spotlight Indexing is going on all the time, then there is something wrong.

Once everything is indexed, only the new stuff or changes gets indexed, and that goes rather quickly.

Download the free OnyX and run all the maintenance and cleaning aspects.

http://www.titanium.free.fr/

You can cancel the reboots in between cleanings.

Last hit the Verify and Preferences check, once that's done quit and reboot your machine via the Apple Menu > Restart.

Spotlight will start it's indexing again, so let it do it's job and this time it should stop and only index when you have new material, very shortly.

The OnyX deep cleaning will most likely catch the gremlin causing your Spotlight indexing to run out of control.

Good luck and thanks for clicking. 🙂

To Barry Hemphill: Your idea will work, but it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We don't want to remove Spotlight. If that were the goal, just go to:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Spotlight.app

and trash it. We do want to index our external drive volumes. The reason for indexing is (ready for this?) to SAVE TIME. A search of either of my external Firewire volumes for file name or content takes 10-30 minutes without indexing. With indexing, it takes seconds. The problem is not solved by removing Spotlight from the mix. We simply need a way to get Spotlight to work as it is theorized by ds store.

To Moof:

Your supercilous comment is duly noted.

I simply answered the original poster's question. What I suggested will NOT "remove" Spotlight.

Try reading a bit more before you butt into a thread.

Barry

Message was edited by: Barry Hemphill

I clicked the first reply I saw. Does it really matter? If I remove all my drives from Spotlight, that will surely stop the indexing. I guess you are right. That isn't the same as turning off or removing Spotlight. It is still running, but has been disconnected from the drives, so it no longer indexes anything. The solution for excrutiatingly slow (I let it index for 48 hours uninterrupted and it didn't finish) indexing is to remove the drive from Spotlight's view? Why not try to solve the problem?

Does this thread have members and others are not allowed in? If you think I didn't read, you are wrong. It is my opinion that if you remove the HDD targets of Spotlight, you are in effect removing indexing as an activity.

You might be able to stop it by excluding it in the privacy tab.

Might be able to find the process in activity monitor/.

Moof, Why are you replying to yourself?

Your attitude is belligerent, I'm not into that.

Bye