[techmexsupport]

I'm looking for any way to speed up my desktop. One item I have running in the background all the time is my indexing. I do love it, as it makes searching for things instantaneous. But I don't need it running every single day. My worry is, if I turned it off or disable it at boot, I will wipe my index and I'll have to rebuild it every time (which takes several hours over hundreds of thousands of files).

Is there a way to keep indexing as an on-demand thing just when needed while telling it to keep everything its indexed up to this point?

 

[Corday]

Try removing folders that you don't believe need indexing from the option. You'd still be indexing daily but it wouldn't interfere as much.

 

[Gary R]

You may find the following useful ....

Indexing Process in Windows Search - Win32 apps

This topic describes the three stages of the indexing process and the primary components involved in each, explains the timing of indexing activity, and provides some notes for third-party developers who want their data stores or file formats indexed.

docs.microsoft.com

Search indexing in Windows 10: FAQ

Get answers to questions about how indexing affects searches in Windows 10.

support.microsoft.com

 

[techmexsupport]

Thanks all, that info is helpful. I read through that info above and the links, but I'm not seeing if there is a way to pause indexing temporarily (so I can turn it back on when I want), without losing all my indexing up to that point and needing to redo it. Any info on that specifically?

 

[Corday]

I found a bunch of ideas on line but none of them worked. Here is the MS "doctrine":
The Windows Search "Provides content indexing and property caching for file, email and other content (via extensibility APIs). The service responds to file and email notifications to index modified content. If the service is stopped or disabled, the Explorer will not be able to display virtual folder views of items, and search in the Explorer will fall back to item-by-item slow search."

 

[Gary R]

At this point in time I'm not aware of any way to pause indexing temporarily, but if I come across anything that I think would help, I'll be sure to post it here.