Spotlight's Gone!....finally

[OutThere]

I installed Tiger last night, and immediately hated spotlight. After spending 2 hours waiting for it to index my several full hard drives, I realized that this was not something I was ever going to use (I'm organized...I use the Find feature maybe once every 2 months), so I disabled it. To those who want to do the same:

1) Open the terminal.

2) Type sudo pico /etc/hostconfig

3) Change the YES in Spotlight:-YES- to NO

4) Write it back to the file.

5) To get rid of the menu extension go to System/Library/Coreservices and move/rename the Search.bundle file.


There you have it! It's all gone! My computer runs and starts up much more quickly now, and I have the space back on my menu bar. I'm really not living up the Tiger life....I would go back to panther but, as people have said, if you get a new car and don't like feel of the seats, you aren't going to abandon it for the old one are you?

 

[wide]

as people have said, if you get a new car and don't like feel of the seats, you aren't going to abandon it for the old one are you?

lol, do people really say that?

 

[falcoboy7]

hmmm....

maybe you should of at least tried it out for a few weeks

cool hack though

 

[James Philp]

what a pity.
If you would have just waited then you would have had a very useful tool on your hands.
How do you find mail now? Does the spotlight box in iCal, Mail, Automator, system prefs etc etc work?

Searching email without Mail open - great
Finding iCal events without having to open it - great
Finding duplicates etc - great
Finding the contents of pdfs word docs, text etc - great
being able to search images made by certain cameras, and specify apetures , focal lengths etc - great

Sorry you did this!

 

[OutThere]

what a pity.
system prefs etc etc work?

Searching email without Mail open - great
Finding iCal events without having to open it - great
Finding duplicates etc - great
Finding the contents of pdfs word docs, text etc - great
being able to search images made by certain cameras, and specify apetures , focal lengths etc - great

Maybe I'm weird, but...

I've searched mail once (1 time) in the past 2 years...I remember because the old mail searching feature was really bothersome when I did use it that one time.

I don't use iCal.

I'm extremely organized with my photos and video files...all sorted by date, project, purpose and the like. Maybe that's why it took so long...it was busy indexing my 15,000 odd photographs so that I could find all the ones I took at f/2.8! Brilliant!

I tested it out, realized that it served no purpose to me at all, and removed it, knowing that when I need to find something, it never takes me more than 30 seconds, with or without spotlight. Anyway, with spotlight bludgeoning my poor internal 4200rpm drive to death I won't get very far anyway, will I

 

[MoparShaha]

Yeah, I don't use Spotlight either. My computer is painstakingly organized, so I know where everything is when I need it. I've thought of disabling Spotlight, but I guess it doesn't hurt having it there. In fact, I like the balance of the two blue things on each end of the menu bar!

 

[MontyZ]

A friend who is using Tiger (I am not yet) said that the one thing he hates about Spotlight is that every time he attaches an external drive, Spotlight immediately starts reindexing it. He does video work, so, keeps different projects on various external drives, but doesn't really need these drive indexed. Maybe there's a way to make Spotlight only index your local disks?

 

[loneAzdgari]

A friend who is using Tiger (I am not yet) said that the one thing he hates about Spotlight is that every time he attaches an external drive, Spotlight immediately starts reindexing it. He does video work, so, keeps different projects on various external drives, but doesn't really need these drive indexed. Maybe there's a way to make Spotlight only index your local disks?

Easy, just drag the drives into the Spotlight System Preferences "Privacy" area. It'll no longer try to index those drives when you plug them in. Your friend will have to do this with each drive but it shouldn't be that much of a hassle.

 

[andiwm2003]

well, now you should find a way to put google desktop search in the menu bar that would be ... aeh ... can't find a word.

seriously, when i bring my PB home and connect it to my external HD will spotlite index it every time or only once?

 

[MontyZ]

Easy, just drag the drives into the Spotlight System Preferences "Privacy" area. It'll no longer try to index those drives when you plug them in. Your friend will have to do this with each drive but it shouldn't be that much of a hassle.

Thanks! I'll be sure to tell him about this.

 

[bankshot]

Maybe there's a way to make Spotlight only index your local disks?

I think you should be able to disable indexing on a per-drive basis. With the drive connected, open Terminal and type the following:

mdutil -i off "/Volumes/volumename"

where volumename is the actual name of the disk. [EDIT] Ah, I see I was beaten to the punch, and with an easier method, too. Silly me, always thinking of the Unix way first!

I just wish it would index network drives and offline media (CDs, DVDs, etc). Nothing I tried would work...

 

[Balin64]

Yeah, I don't use Spotlight either. My computer is painstakingly organized, so I know where everything is when I need it. I've thought of disabling Spotlight, but I guess it doesn't hurt having it there. In fact, I like the balance of the two blue things on each end of the menu bar!

Like you, both my Macs are extremely well-organized... as a matter of fact, I'm a little obsessive-compulsive about it


For example, I have two halves of my Macs: work, and play. Never the two shall meet! iTunes, iPhoto, guitar tabs, recipes et al, on one half, Graphics, Photos (real work stuff), AIFF, Amadeus and Writing on the other. Also, the file structure must match exactly on both Macs; for example, you could swap the iTunes xml database between both computers and they would be EXACTLY the same. I know, I have a problem.

BUT, while I know where everything is, and know the exact difference and location of "HowthDublin12.1.jpg" & "HowthDublin12.a.jpg", Spotlight has it there fast: Boom! Like Steve-O says. It saves me the Finder navigation time... it also makes working with Automator MUCH easier.

I am enjoying Spotlight, and you of course have your own workflow and way of doing things... I am just saying that Spotlight lets you have the best of both worlds!

 

[ravenvii]

I don't have much crap on my Mac, so I never used search to find files I want or anything. Never used the search in Mail - I like to keep an empty inbox. I never keep email. I don't use iCal either.

But I still use Find/Spotlight occasionally, when I uninstall apps. Just trashing the app itself doesn't completely remove it you know. Hit up the search and you'll find pieces of the app in preferences and other places. That's what I mainly use search for; to find those buggers and put them in their place (i.e. trash). Spotlight IS the search system for the Finder. Find is no more. So if you ever need to search for something... You're screwed.

 

[iJaz]

There is apparently a program that you can use to turn off Spotlight, if you don't like the terminal.
http://www.fixamacsoftware.com/software/spot/
I haven't tried it, I don't even have Tiger, yet...

 

[me_94501]

I'm a little less than organized, so I'll take whatever I can get!

 

[Lacero]

I launch apps from Spotlight if it's not on my Dock. That's how useful it is for me, and launching apps from Spotlight doesn't require the use of a mouse.

 

[jaseone]

I launch apps from Spotlight if it's not on my Dock. That's how useful it is for me, and launching apps from Spotlight doesn't require the use of a mouse.

Yep, a quick CMD+Space, a few letters of the app and there it is. That is what I mainly use Spotlight for, although once I move more of my stuff over here I'm sure I'll use it for searching as well.

 

[kgarner]

I launch apps from Spotlight if it's not on my Dock. That's how useful it is for me, and launching apps from Spotlight doesn't require the use of a mouse.

Sweet. I never thought of using it for that. That will save a lot of time when I need something buried in a folder (Utilities, Games, etc). Thanks for the tip.

 

[mcarnes]

I was alarmed when I first installed Tiger that it was indexing my externals. Just choose not the search them in spotlight prefs under the "privacy" section. I guess it depends on what you use your externals for. For me, it's only for backups or big media files, so excluding them from spotlight works fine.

I didn't think I'd use it much either, but now use it quite a bit. After hating it I like it again. It's really pretty good. Just use it on your internal drive. Indexing those externals is where it gets ugly (for me anyway).

 

[iBunny]

Sweet. I never thought of using it for that. That will save a lot of time when I need something buried in a folder (Utilities, Games, etc). Thanks for the tip.

Im just alittle lost.. You didnt know you could do that?

I mean, I thought thats what it was for....

 

[Flying Llama]

I launch apps from Spotlight if it's not on my Dock. That's how useful it is for me, and launching apps from Spotlight doesn't require the use of a mouse.

Yep, a quick CMD+Space, a few letters of the app and there it is. That is what I mainly use Spotlight for, although once I move more of my stuff over here I'm sure I'll use it for searching as well.

You know there is a MUCH nicer way to do things like that.... MEET, QUICKSILVER!!! TADADADA!!

Maybe you prefer using Spotlight for that, but the two apps are very different. They don't compete, they complement each other.

I love quicksilver, one of my favorite apps, along with Adium and a few others.

 

[jaseone]

You know there is a MUCH nicer way to do things like that.... MEET, QUICKSILVER!!! TADADADA!!

Maybe you prefer using Spotlight for that, but the two apps are very different. They don't compete, they complement each other.

I love quicksilver, one of my favorite apps, along with Adium and a few others.

I tried both Qucksilver and Butler back with Panther, didn't much care for Quicksilver but Butler was nice enough although I hated waiting for it to load each time I rebooted.

I just use Spotlight now because it is there and works well, so as they say if it isn't broken then why try to fix it?

 

[Maxiseller]

I'm with the majority here:

I'm organized, I know where to find things - but god damn it's useful having every file at your fingertips in seconds. Plus, in my case, there are always one or two files that cross genres and I can't locate them etc. Spotlight does eliminate hassle, but like everything new, you have to get used to it.

 

[Flying Llama]

I tried both Qucksilver and Butler back with Panther, didn't much care for Quicksilver but Butler was nice enough although I hated waiting for it to load each time I rebooted.

I just use Spotlight now because it is there and works well, so as they say if it isn't broken then why try to fix it?

It's true that Spotlight is nicely integrated, makes a much better filesystem index than quicksilver and much more, I just "cataloqued" (as they call it) my applications folder and a few others, simply for quick file launching. But spotlight is much better at finding files.

I like Spotlight... Good job Apple!

 

[Flying Llama]

Plus, why would you even take the time to disable Spotlight? Uses to much RAM? CPU usage? I don't see any reason to disable it, even if you don't use it. Even if you'll only use it once in your life. But why??