Some people disable Windows search indexing to save on disk space. Others disable it for security reasons. Here are some prime examples:

  • If you use a laptop with an SSD, disabling indexing may help conserve disk space.
  • If you use a desktop computer with an HDD, disabling indexing may help protect your data from being accessed by unauthorized individuals.
  1. Start by disabling indexing on your computer. Indexing can speed up the process of finding files by making them available to search faster, but it can also cause problems such as incorrect results when you try to search for a file that’s already been searched for.
  2. If you still want to index your files, we suggest using an indexer such as Microsoft’s OneDrive or Google Drive. These indexes the files automatically and provide more accurate results than manual indexing.

If you have a slow hard drive and a good CPU, it’s better to keep your search indexing off. This is especially true for those with SSDs because they can read your files so quickly.

Indexing your computer’s search results doesn’t damage it in any way. With it turned on, all searches are indexed so that they are faster – however, the search indexer uses CPU and RAM, so with it off, you will save those resources.

Turn Off Windows Search Indexing Selectively

You can disable indexing for specific folders on your PC, so if you frequently search areas on your computer, it may be worth keeping indexing off for those.

Open the Start menu and type Indexing. Click on Indexing Options.

In the Indexing Options page, you’ll see a list that shows all included and excluded locations for indexing. This will include your Start Menu, Internet Explorer History, and most importantly, the Users folder and everything inside it. This means everything like your documents, downloads, pictures, and videos folders.

If you have a lot of files that you rarely look at, you should choose to turn off indexing. Click Modify, then on the new page, scroll down to the ticked Users folder and untick it. After, click OK. You may find multiple Users folders, so make sure you find the one that is ticked.

You can further organize your files by unticking the Users folder in the drop-down menu on the Documents folder. This could be useful, for example, if you visit my documents frequently but seldom touch the other folders. ..

If you keep adding files to each folder, the indexing process will continue, using up more system resources. It’s best to switch this off for folders you seldom use to save on system resources. ..

Turn Off Outlook Search Indexing

In Outlook, click File – Options.

In the search box, type “outlook” and then click on the blue highlighted button. You’ll now see a list of all the applications that are indexed by Microsoft Outlook.

To turn off Outlook search indexing, first click Microsoft Outlook in the list to highlight it. Next, click Modify and then click the tick box in the new window to untick it. Finally, click OK.

Turn Off Windows Search Indexing For Specific Drives

If you want to turn off Windows search indexing for specific drives, you can do so by following a different process. It’s recommended to turn off search indexing for drives you rarely use, such as backup drives. ..

To access your computer’s settings, open the Start menu and type PC and click on This PC when it appears in the search results. To open the Start menu, press Windows key + I on your keyboard. To access your computer’s settings, open the Start menu and type PC and click on this PC when it appears in the search results. ..

In the Properties dialog, click the General tab. In the General tab, click the Mount button. In the Mount dialog, click the Browse button and select a location to mount your drive. Click OK to close the Properties dialog and mount your drive.

On the General tab, click to uncheck Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties. After, click Apply.

You will be given the option to choose all files or just the drive itself. Make sure to select Apply changes to Drive X:, subfolders and files. After, click OK. If you want to apply your changes to just the drive itself (X:), subfolders and files, click on the “Apply changes” button. ..

The next step will take some time. Your PC will now apply this new attribute to every file on that drive. Thankfully, you can let it run in the background and it shouldn’t have a huge impact on your performance, unless you’re applying it to the drive you are using Windows on. ..

If any Access Denied messages appear, just ignore them and continue using the system files or other files that are currently being used.

Completely Disable Indexing

If you want to disable search indexing on Windows 10 completely, you must use another method. The methods above can stop search indexing for specific files and folders, but the search index service is still running. ..

To disable Windows search on your computer, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Start menu and type “cmd” (without the quotes).
  2. Type “netstat -an” to see how your network is performing. If your computer is not connecting to the internet, this may be the cause of your slow performance.
  3. If you are experiencing problems with Windows search, please follow these steps: a. Disable Windows search by going to “Control Panel > System > Security > Advanced Security”. This will take you to a page where you can select whether or not to allow Windows search access to your computer. b. If you have multiple computers on your network and want them all to be able to use Windows search, then you can set up a group policy setting that will allow all computers in the group policy setting to use Windows search. To do this, open the Group Policy Editor and create a new GPO called “Computer Configuration > Policies > Security > Search”. On the left side of the new GPO, click on the ellipsis next to “Windows Search”. In the resulting window, enter a name for this GPO and click OK. c. Restart your computer if you have changed this GPO in previous steps and if it has not worked yet then try again later when there are no problems with searching for files on your computer anymore

You can start by pressing Windows Key + R, typing services.msc and clicking OK.

Windows Search is a search engine that you can use to find information faster. To find it easier, click the Name button twice to organize alphabetically from Z-A. Double click Windows Search when you find it.

In the new tab that opens, click Stop to stop the Windows Search indexing service, and then click the Startup type dropdown box. In the list that appears, select Disabled. After, click Apply.

If you have restarted your computer recently, you may have disabled Windows Search indexing. You can now re-enable it by following these steps:

  1. Open the Control Panel.
  2. Click on the Administrative Tools icon.
  3. Double-click on Windows Search.
  4. On the Indexing Options tab, click on the Restart button to restart Windows Search indexing. ..

If you notice any problems with search performance, you can turn it back on again.