What is with all this @$%* indexing??

[T Coma]

M1 MBP 16" Pro running Monterrey 12.6

Lately it seems every time I look at the istat display in the menu bar, the first two cores of my MBP are totally lit up, so I check Activity Monitor and of course, it's mdworker_shared and mds_stores. Again. Running for hours on end, "indexing."

WTF has to be indexed - again - and for so long? While I do have JBOD attached via hub, I have no new drives and no huge new accumulation of files. I've eliminated most of the JBOD in Spotlight settings: privacy. I can shut it off with sudo mdutil -a -i off, and force quitting whatever stays open. I'll occasionally reboot and restart mdutil but it goes back to the same activity again. I haven't heard the fans running, but two cores running full for so long can't be right.

I don't understand why this seems to be reindexing so often.

 

[Bigwaff]

Spotlight problems: mds_stores and mdworker in trouble

Excessive CPU use by mds_stores is a common cause of sluggish performance. Explains what it does and what you can do bring it under control.

eclecticlight.co

 

[T Coma]

Spotlight problems: mds_stores and mdworker in trouble

Excessive CPU use by mds_stores is a common cause of sluggish performance. Explains what it does and what you can do bring it under control.

eclecticlight.co

“An even better solution, if you can, is to upgrade to Ventura, where the problem with indexing Time Machine backup storage seems to have largely resolved.”

That’s what I was afraid of.

 

[Fishrrman]

Alternative approach:

Do what I did YEARS AGO when Spotlight was first introduced:
TURN IT OFF and LEAVE IT OFF.
No more indexing.

NOTE:
You must disable System Integrity Protection first.

The older command I have to disable Spotlight:
sudo mdutil -a -i off

This might now be changed...
See:

How to turn off Spotlight search on Mac

Has Spotlight been overloading your Mac’s CPU? We will help you disable Spotlight Suggestions and fully turn off Spotlight on your MacBook in no time.

cleanmymac.com

This command used to stop indexing of all volumes:
sudo defaults write /.Spotlight-V100/VolumeConfiguration Exclusions -array "/Volumes"

(again, not sure if it still works).

Hope this helps.