"Save" time longer with Spotlight (bye bye Spotlight!)

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I recently disabled Spotlight but had to reinstate it briefly this evening as I wanted to find something and Find Any File wasn't seeing it. But I noticed that when Spotlight was active and I went to save my DP 7.1 file, it took 3 to 4 times longer to save. This would seem to confirm that Spotlight does, indeed, impair disk access. In and of itself, a longer save is not that big a deal, but if it does the same thing to other file access it can slow programs (DP included) that need to quickly access files like audio and video in order to perform well.

So no more Spotlight for me! Just thought I'd share...

[Dan Walsh]

probably a dumb question--how do you disable spotlight? I never use it and I may as well have it off.

[amplidood]

http://ampguimods.com/page2/page2.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Go to the bottom of the page. I've hated what Spotlight did to my computers the very first time it was introduced. Nice idea, but no way to make it work without always going in the background. They've never been able to fix its tendency to rev your CPU's into the red and get stuck there while it gets stuck on some file. Hate it.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

probably a dumb question--how do you disable spotlight? I never use it and I may as well have it off.

Not a dumb question at all and I owe you having made you snot all over you monitor earlier this evening...

Two ways. First and permanent way is to run a command line (which I am loath to do and don't know it anyway but can find it for you if need be).

Safer way (IMO) is to go to System Preferences>Spotlight and select the privacy tab. Than hit the plus sign and add each hard drive you want to exclude. I added them all which essentially disables Spotlight. You probably have to do them one at a time and if your OS setup has your drives "hidden" from the New Finder Window and/or the desktop, navigate to your "machine" and select the drives that way.

Clear as mud, huh? Sorry, I'm a bit underwhelmed by the current project and about to call it a day. But that should help. There's also this: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php? ... 2215912892" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; but again, I am not so keen on removing something that is an OS element as it can create havoc when upgrading the OS.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

http://ampguimods.com/page2/page2.html

Go to the bottom of the page. I've hated what Spotlight did to my computers the very first time it was introduced. Nice idea, but no way to make it work without always going in the background. They've never been able to fix its tendency to rev your CPU's into the red and get stuck there while it gets stuck on some file. Hate it.

And what he said!

[Dan Walsh]

Thank you gentlemen.

[bongo_x]

I got a polling call from Apple a couple of years ago asking me what I thought about the OS. I told them I hated spotlight. The person sounded a little surprised.

bb

[bongo_x]

I actually disabled it a couple times, but it disables some other functions besides search. If I could remember what they were I'd tell you. There was some reason I didn't keep it that way though.

bb

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Thank you gentlemen.

Must be talking to you, amplidood! Nobody here but us drunks (and Chunks). Here boy... good dog!

[mhschmieder]

Hmm, I disabled it a long time ago, but had forgotten I did so. That explains why file search isn't very reliable on my computer.

I'm curious now about this caveat about it disabling other stuff as well. Do let us know if you remember what those functions are that are affected.

[amplidood]

Hmm, I disabled it a long time ago, but had forgotten I did so. That explains why file search isn't very reliable on my computer.

I'm curious now about this caveat about it disabling other stuff as well. Do let us know if you remember what those functions are that are affected.

Search won't work at all if Spotlight is off, since it looks in the index. I remember the days when Find File would search directories.....sigh. There are plenty of other apps out there to find files with. I use Path Finder in place of the Finder anyway, and its search is fast and doesn't take my computer over. You can use Butler to keep track of certain folders and search them as well, much less problematic than Spotlight.

[Jim]

Spotlight is probably very useful for people who use computers for anything but audio and video. If all you're doing is word-processing or data shuffling, and you need to search document contents, then Spotlight would be great.

I'm not sure why Apple hasn't offered an easy way to disable it completely, as they're selling machines as powerhouse AV workstations, and using an indexer like Spotlight is well-known to conflict with streaming data apps.

I use EasyFind. It's free. It will find invisible files, which Spotlight no longer does, as of a few revs ago.

[Frodo]

I'm not sure why Apple hasn't offered an easy way to disable it completely....

I'm thinking that Apple believes that Spotlight is a good thing without "seeing" the down side of the occasional sluggishness it creates when audio is at issue. It must be the indexing and file cross-checking that slows things down for a lot of people. How and when Spotlight updates its database can indeed play against those in DAW world. However, I've been doing a bit more on my MBP lately than I ever did on my previous PPC laptop. Spotlight was a royal pain at first, but I was surprised that over time how it settled down. I've kept it running in Snow Leopard, but had to disabled it in Tiger on two different towers.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I also understood that Spotlight wasn't so bad on SL. Still hoping for a damn Mac Pro in April...

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm..........

[newrigel]

That's really odd... I have never noticed it doing anything. I must be blind or these SSD's are so fast I don't notice it working in the background... either way, I've never thought twice about it... or make that even once!