 |
 |
Preventing Spotlight from indexing drives
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Regular
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Status:
Offline
|
|
I'm trying to drop my Windows drive in the Spotlight Privacy to prevent it being indexed but it's not taking it. Anyone see this or know how to fix it?
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Regular
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Denmark
Status:
Offline
|
|
It's just not possible yet. I've tried it many times. with a NTFS partition. It just does not work. I read that because OS X can't write to an NTFS partition that it can't be added to Spotlight because Spotlight creates a file or folder on the given partition. I don't know if it's doable with a FAT32 Windows partition. I messes around as Root on my Windows partition by manually adding an entry into the Spolight folder but it won't work. Sorry.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Regular
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Status:
Offline
|
|
Thanks. But I also realized I can't drop anything onto the privacy. I create a folder on the Desktop and drop it on the privacy and it doesn't stay there. That's not normal, right?
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mac Elite
Join Date: Jul 2002
Status:
Offline
|
|
That dialog is buggy, so use the + button to manually put it in there.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Senior User
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Asia
Status:
Offline
|
|
You might want to consider Spotless
With this utility you can turn off Spotlight for individual drives, remove metadata indexes or even turn off Spotlight totally.
Not sure how it works with Windoze volumes, but you can try it for free with a nag screen. And if it meets your needs, its less than 10 bucks.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Nov 2006
Status:
Offline
|
|
I think that Spotlight dialog will only accept HFS+ formated volumes/folders to be dragged on to it.
You should be able to stop FAT32 or NTFS drives being indexed by creating a ".metadata_never_index" file in the root directory of the drive. Easily done by navigating to the root of the drive in Terminal and running "touch .metadata_never_index". Reboot and the drive should no longer be indexed by Spotlight.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Regular
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Status:
Offline
|
|
Originally Posted by pokeman 
I think that Spotlight dialog will only accept HFS+ formated volumes/folders to be dragged on to it.
You should be able to stop FAT32 or NTFS drives being indexed by creating a ".metadata_never_index" file in the root directory of the drive. Easily done by navigating to the root of the drive in Terminal and running "touch .metadata_never_index". Reboot and the drive should no longer be indexed by Spotlight.
I couldn't drop anything on the Privacy because indexing was disabled for the OS X volume (??). Once enabled, I can drop stuff there. Thanks for the .metadata_never_index tip. I'll do that on the FAT32 and NTFS.
I know it's indexing the NTFS volume despite being unable to write to it. I though each volume had it's own .Spotlight-V100 directory (FAT32 is writable, is indexed and still doesn't have the directory ??). Where is it keeping the index of the NTFS volume?
Spotlight is like OS X 10.0: very rough around the edges but shows promise...
Thanks.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 
|
|
|
Forum Rules
|
|
|
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Top
