Some people love Tigeris Spotlight feature. Others, not so much. It can be a useful search tool, but if you find it gets in the way, or searches the wrong volumes, itis time to take control and make Spotlight do what you want.
One of the most flexible tools Iive found for controlling Spotlight is Fixamac Softwareis Spotless. This useful app lets you prevent Spotlight from indexing specific volumes - something that the Spotlight Preference Pane is rather unreliable with - and also lets you disable Spotlight completely.
Hereis how to use Spotless to disable indexing on a specific volume:
- Download and install Spotless.
- Launch Spotless.
- Select the disk you donit want Spotlight to index.
- Click the Disable Indexing button.
 Use Spotless to enable or disable searching for specific disks. |
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To disable Spotlight completely, just click the Disable Spotlight button.
Disabling indexing prevents Spotlight from building its database of files, folders, and metadata, and it also prevents Spotlight from searching the contents of a non-indexed drive.
The advantages to disabling Spotlight is that it stays completely out of your way. It can also speed up your Mac since background file indexing is also disabled. The downside is that you wonit be able to search for files and folders even with the Finderis built-in Find command.
Spotless costs US$12.95, and is available for download at the Fixamac Software Web site.
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