Disable spotlight for External Drives

I have 5 macs, and several USB and Firewire drives. Most of these external drives are plugged into different machines from time to time. None sit permanantly in any machine (because most of my machines are laptops).
I'd like to prevent Spotlight from indexing my External drives.
I know I can (after plugging in a EXT drive), use the privacy function in the Spotlight Preferences. But with a dozen or so external drives (HDD and Thumb) on 5 machines, that's too much work each time I plug a drive into a machine.
I read that the existence of a ".metadata_never_index" file prevents Spotlight indexing. I assume this works, but it's hard to tell for sure, because the moment I plug a drive in, my machine seems to start indexing faster than I can create this file. So I wind up with a .Spotlight-V100 directory. I was hoping that OSX would delete this for me after I set Privacy or add the ".metadata_never_index" file. But it does not. It may be that I have to delete it manually (probably because Privacy is a COMPUTER setting (not on HDD setting).
QUESTIONS:
Does the ".metadata_never_index" file supported by OSX (Mavericks and MtnLion).
Can I delete the .Spotlight-V100 directory in my EXT Drives, without the risk of causing a problem?
If I put a ".metadata_never_index" file in /Volume, will it effectively prevent indexing on any mounted drive, without affecting the Macintosh HD indexing?
Is there an non-invisible equivilent to ".metadata_never_index" (so it's more obvious when indexing is turned off).

Glad you found that helpful.
The Privacy listing for a given external only disappears when the external isn't attached; it reappears when it is attached so either a local record of "Don't Index" is only shown as necessary or, more likely, that record is on the external and is read as part of the mounting process when it's connected. While the process of putting each external on each Mac's Privacy list is a pain, it should only be necessary to do it once. Whether the Don't Index flag is Mac specific, so that Mac 1 doesn't want that external indexed but Mac 2 does, is another question.
I do think the Don't Index flag or file is separate from the partition's logical name because, when I erase the partition in preparation for a new backup clone, I don't change the name of the partition, and the name of the device to be cloned doesn't change either. Rather, it may simply be a Spotlight related file that gets erased along with everything else.
Fortunately, I don't have to worry about Spotlight; apart from the Privacy listing, I have all of the Search Results options unchecked, so there's very little to index on the boot partition. Spotlight can't be turned off altogether though because it interacts with the App Store regarding purchases and downloads. For finding things, I use EasyFind, which, while not able to find content in documents, looks inside of everything else, including Packages and hidden System files, and does it on demand without having to index anything. Another advantage of that is, by not tinkering with OS files, including those associated with Spotlight under the hood, when a new OS changes how things work, there's less risk of a deeply hidden self inflicted bug.

Similar Messages

Can I disable trash for external drives?

Hello,
Is it possible to disable the Trash for external drives so that files from external drives are completey deleted automatically, or else moved to the trash on my internal hard drive? The problem that I am trying to solve is, for example, when I download pictures from my camera, if I want to make more space available on the camera, I have to first delete the pictures from the camera, and then empty my trash, since deleting the pictures from the camera only moves them to a hidden folder called ".Trash". I would prefer if I didn't have to empty the trash every time I wanted to free up room on my camera external hard drive.
Thanks very much,
Adrian
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.1)

It isn't without its risks, but another option may be to ⌘-drag the files to the hard drive, which will simulate a "move" by copying the files to the hard drive then deleting them from the external. If something goes wrong during the transfer, it may be difficult in some situations to determine which files were being copied at the time - ie. which ones were potentially corrupted. It might be ok as a cleanup procedure after the files have been imported normally, but then you end up sitting through the process of copying them to the hard drive a second time - you might as well just toss them in the "Trash". Also, if a large number of files is involved, just don't accidentally drop them on the "Desktop" because the "Finder" can't handle it. Obviously, I'm not a fan of the method, but it's there as an option...

Trying to disable spotlight on firewire drives...

I have tried throught the Terminal as well as privacy prefs to disable a couple backup firewire drives from indexing. However every time I restart spotlight tries to index again. It seems to forget the settings. Anyone with a similar experience that has a solution for me?
Thanks for the help.

Download a copy of Spotless. From the app. you can disable indexing for the drives (make sure they are on when doing so). Afterward, open your System Preference panel for Spotlight and add the drives or drives' partitions into the privacy pane. That ought to stop Spotlight from indexing the drives.

Disabling spotlight for Time Capsule

Hi,
I need to disable (please do not ask the reason, I just need) indexing for backups on the Time Capsule. I know that the help on Spotlight says Time Machine needs spotlight bla bla... and, it can't disable indexing for this. I just don't beleive it, because when I disable spotlight for good with the following command:
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
time machine continues to function just fine. Everything seems perfect as far as the time machine is concerned. However, other apps (like Mail) which relies on spotlight for searching forced me to reenable the spotlight (with the following command) with tears in my eyes:
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
So, please help me to find a workaround for disabling spotlight/indexing just for time machine.
By the way I tried the following methods without any success, so do not bother to recommend them:
1) Including TM volume and/or Backup directory in the TM volume to the privacy list of Spotlight
2) sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/VolumeName and sudo mdutil -E /VolumeName
3) Erased .Spotlight-V100
4) touch .metadata_never_index in the root and/ot Backup directory of time machine volume
5) creating a dummy file named .Spotlight-V100
[rebooted in all instances...]
PLEASE HELP

So, you've read through the FAQs and couldn't find a solution, eh? Sorry, but I don't use TM nor do I muck with CLI commands that I don't fully comprehend. You'll have to wait for someone more knowledgeable to pop in.

I want to disable 'Spotlight' for repairing my disk "Macintosh HD" , but somehow the command 'sudo mdutil -a -i off' does not work in 'Terminal'. I get result as ' bash: sudo: command not found' .I am using OS 10.10. Please help.

I want to disable 'Spotlight' for repairing my disk "Macintosh HD" , but somehow the command 'sudo mdutil -a -i off' does not work in 'Terminal'. I get result as ' bash: sudo: command not found' .I am using OS 10.10. Please help.

It appears that you may not have a properly installed OS X system.
You must be connected to the Internet to reinstall OS X.
In the menu bar, choose Apple menu > Restart. Once your Mac restarts (and the gray screen appears), hold down the Command (⌘) and R keys.
Select “Disk Utility,” and then click Continue.
Select your startup disk from the list on the left, and then Repair Disk.
After disk is repaired, select Reinstall OS X, then click Continue.
Follow the onscreen instructions. In the pane where you select a disk, select your current OS X disk

Spotlight looses index for external drives

Hello
why is that I have to re index my external drives all the time. it seems to me spotlight can not keep the index, when ever i try search in my external hard-drive spotlight finds nothing even so i can see files with the search name right in front of me. I have to go to preference than add the hard drive at the no search column and delete out if it then spotlight starts the indexing again which takes 2+hours and slows things down. it is good for a while and bam it is gone again and have to do all the steps over again any idea

Mark Barron wrote:
The Spotlight search of my external hard drive gets buggy after a while and just stops seeing items on the drive. It is a terabyte drive that takes FOREVER to reindex and bogs down my MPB 2.5 in the process. Even with a Firewire 800 connection. I'd LOVE to be able to attach this to another mac and run the reindex. Guess that would only work if the index file was actually on the external drive, and not on the boot drive. The genius/apple care guys at Mac gave some vague/dodging answer like.. we don't support external hard drives.
LOL! that's a good one.
Does anybody have a real suggestion?
the spotlight index IS stored on the drive itself so if you want to reindex it using a different computer, go for it. just make sure to use the same OS computer. DO NOT reindex it using a tiger computer.

Disabling Spotlight on Secondary Drive in Leopard For Free

How to do this without buying third-party software? Is it possible? I've searched these forums and only found that you need to buy a $13 software.
I need to disable Spotlight on my scratch disk.

Go into System Preferences -> Spotlight and click on the Privacy tab. Add the second disk in there, and Spotlight won't index it.

Disable spotlight for USB thumbdrives?

All,
Is there a way to prevent OSX from doing a Spotlight inventory of every USB drive that I plug into my MacBook? What I mean is, every time I plug a USB thumb drive into my laptop, and then take it over to a Linux or Windows machine, I notice that OSX has written three files to the drive:
.Spotlight-V100
.Trashes
._.Trashes
I want to disable this feature, just for USB drives.
Hints?

Hm. I have this problem too.
Played with this a bit, but doesn't seem to work 100% of the time. I can alter the settings as you described, but they are only good until I eject the USB drive.
More specifically:
1. Plug in USB thumb drive.
2. Go to Spotlight settings (described above) and select my drive to be excluded from Spotlight indexing.
3. Work a bit.
4. Eject (remove) USB thumb drive.
5. Check Spotlight settings, and notice that USB device is no longer in the the "exclude" (or privacy) list.
It would seem that the "privacy" settings are not persistent across sessions. Once you eject, all bets are off and you have to redo this process every time.
If there is no built-in way to do this, perhaps scripting could take care of this ... ?
Someone has to have had this problem before we did?

Spotlight Indexing External Drives

I have been waiting about a week for Spotlight to Index my external drives, but the magnifying glass continually only shows "Estimating indexing time..." for each drive and never seems to go any further.
Any clues?
Thanks.
-Aaron

Aaron Welch wrote:
I have been waiting about a week for Spotlight to Index my external drives, but the magnifying glass continually only shows "Estimating indexing time..." for each drive and never seems to go any further.
It clearly doesn't like something on one of them. I'd start by excluding all of them from indexing, via System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy, then running +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on each one, via Disk Utility, in your Applications/Utilities folder.
Then remove the exclusions, one at a time. If one hangs like that again, you'll at least know which one it is, and can try a process of elimination by excluding folders on that drive.

Spotlight erased external drive?

I have a Western Digital 320 gb Personal Edition external drive connected through USB. Today I started Time Machine for the first time. I noticed as TM was backing up my files from one internal drive to another that Spotlight was indexing my external drive. Didn't think anything of it, indexing is usually a good thing.
Checked the WD drive post TM initiation, and it's empty, by the looks of the gigabytes available, wiped clean.
Questions: How can this happen? Are the files truly gone, or by some trick they'll reappear? I won't restart my computer until I hear a somewhat definitive answer, and potential solution. Thanks!

OK, having not turning off the Western Digital 320 gig drive since beginning this, my Command-I reveals though it is a 320 gig drive and shows there are 0 files, two things to note:
1. It is now formatted as a MS-DOS (FAT 32) drive instead of the original Mac initialized disk.
2. Though the capacity is 320 gb, there is only 120 gb. available, meaning the Mac files/.jpgs/mp3 apparently still exist on the drive, but are now rendered invisible?
Great - invisible files.
SO: Can simply indexing an external drive reformat it to MS-DOS Fat 32?
If so, how do I access the existing files? They do not appear erased.
PROCESS:
1. I plugged in a Mac-formatted external Western Digital drive using USB with 200gb of information on it,
2. started Time Machine to back up to a secondary internal drive,
3. simultaneously and automatically the external drive began to be indexed while starting up Time machine, and
4. now post-indexing it shows 0 files available - how can this happen, how does indexing reformat a Mac-initialized drive into a MS-DOS (FAT-32) drive while still retaining the existing files on the drive?? I am dumbfounded.

UPS Energy Saver on MacBook Pro for External Drives

A search here has shown this topic come up before -- such as at https://discussions.apple.com/message/1886738#1886738 and https://discussions.apple.com/message/8162836#8162836 -- but I can't find a resolution, so I'm bringing it up again.
I have multiple FW drives connected to my MacBook Pro. The MBP is connected to an APC Back-UPS RS 1200. OSX does not make the UPS Energy Saver autoshutdown preferences available on the MBP, the reasoning being that a laptop shouldn't need UPS autoshutdown because it has its own battery which is likely to run for far longer than the UPS would.
That's all well and good for the MBP itself, but it doesn't account for the multiple FW drives which are attached to it for backups and other purposes. In the event of a power outage, without UPS autoshutdown, the UPS will run down, and the drives will abruptly power off, exposing them to potential data loss and damage.
It's also not a solution to suggest that I manually power things down once there's a power outage, because the power can go out while I'm away for more than the few minutes of UPS battery back up time. The only real solution is to have UPS autoshutdown available on all portable machines. Unless and until Apple offers a (surely very simple) OS update to make that happen, I'm still interested in a solution.
APC's own software for autoshutdown stopped being updated long ago, so there is no version compatible with Snow Leopard.
The only potential solution I've found so far is http://www.apcupsd.org/ -- but its documentation is overwhelming and it appears that it may need other supporting software, a fair amount of Terminal usage, etc., all making it not very user-friendly for the very simple usage I'd want to make of it.
Does anyone know of any other solutions, software that can run on a MBP to add UPS autoshutdown functionality?
Re: Apcups, is anyone using it successfully on a MBP? If so, does anyone know if the version listed here -- http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/Apcupsd.shtml -- is a simple application that I can easily install and configure like regular Mac apps? If yes, then I'll likely be very happy with no need for the following question. If no, can anyone provide simple instructions to set up Apcupsd to do what I want?

"You are not doing anything on the computer so no files should be writing to the drives."
Big assumption there. With today's notebooks so capable of acting as desktop substitutes, they are often left running unattended to complete demanding tasks overnight or while the user does other things.
To be able to suspend such activities and gracefully power down an external drive or drives in the event of a power outage, the Mac would have to have instructions from each third-party application or process that is running about how to interrupt its activity safely and without jeopardizing the integrity of whatever hard disk directories are in use. Then it would need to unmount the drive(s) and, if they were bus-powered drives, turn off the power to each of them at the port to which it was connected. I bet it would be possible for all app developers to write such instructions into their apps' code, but where's the incentive for them to do so? This isn't a feature that most users would gladly pay extra for, I suspect, and the cost of adding it to apps that don't have it now and testing it for reliability and proper function under all conceivable circumstances would not be trivial.
If the drive(s) were AC-powered, the computer wouldn't be able to power them down itself -- the UPS would have to do that, or simply leave them on and power them until its battery was depleted or the AC was restored. It wouldn't matter which happened as far as the drives and their contents were concerned, because once the computer stopped using them, powering them off would be safe at any time.

Step by Step Guide needed for external drives.... Help!

I know this has probably been done to death already but I can't seem to make any of the suggestions work in this case. I guess what I need is someone to tell me like I'm a 5 year old on how to do this.
I want to move my music library to an external drive as my main drive is getting full. I have iTunes on my c: drive and want to move my music to an external drive (h:) so it can play and be stored there. I have tried a couple of times to move it and tell iTunes where to find it but for some reason a couple of things happen...
1. iTunes changes the location back to the c: drive, even after I have pointed it to a folder created on the external drive.
2. if it does look to the external drive it doesn't find the library... the music is there but iTunes doesn't display it in the library.
I must be doing something really wrong or this isn't possible... any advice would be a great help.

You might find this article useful: iLounge - Transferring your iTunes Library to Another Drive

Best setup for external drives and backup

I'm using Aperture to organize several thousand photos. I've gotten good advice her before about how to get started on this. I'm not a professional and I'm not an experienced user of Aperture, so don't assume a lot of knowledge when you answer. I'm wondering what the best way to set up the file storage would be. I use a MacBook Pro, so obviously that's out for storage, and financially, purchasing a more powerful desktop is out for the time being. I was thinking of purchasing a mirror drive system, like this: http://www.newertech.com/products/gmax.php
But then, there still remains the problem of backing up the photos in case of a fire or theft, etc. I have many of them on DVD, but not with all the metadata that I've added. Can I back the external drives up to a cloud-based storage system through the wireless on the MacBook?
Or, is the answer none of the above? What recommendations do you folks have for managing this?

more:
Paula-
Mirror drives are very much less than ideal for images backup. Mirroring occurs in real-time, so errors, breaks, etc. simply get copied. With images work (unlike fanancial work, for instance) we do not need real-time backup we just need regular accurate backup. Just have 2-3 external drives and rotate them regularly, always having one drive off-site (could be in your car or whatever). Back up manually rather than automatically so that you can be reasonably certain that the backup is not backing up something that just broke.
I suggest the below workflow. Note that most important is that original images from the camera card are copied to two locations before reformatting the card and before importing into Aperture or any other images management application.
Original images never change, so I prefer to manually copy them to two locations asap after capture: one location is the computer drive and the other is an external backup HD that itself gets backed up off site regularly. That assures me that "the pic is in the can." Until two digital files exist on different media I do not consider the pic in the can.
Then reformat the card in-camera, not before.
The Masters then get imported into Aperture from the Mac internal drive by reference (i.e. "Storing Files: in their current location" on the Mac internal drive). After editing is complete (may take weeks or months), from within Aperture I relocate the referenced Masters to an external hard drive for long-term storage.
I do use Time Machine routinely on the MBP, but for the daily-volatile activities going of the MBP. I prefer not to have TM be my backup-of-originals protocol. Instead TM backs up the Mac internal drive on the TM schedule and I back up original images asap based on my shooting schedule. Also the TM drive is a different drive than the drives used for long-term original image files archiving.
TM does back up my Library because the Library lives on the Mac internal drive but I do not assume that TM works for Library backup. I back the Library up to Vaults (on the same drives I put archives of Masters on) independent of TM. IMO one should back up image files and back up Vaults manually after verifying that what is being backed up is not broken, because automatic backup will just back up a broken Library or whatever.
Note that Masters need only be backed up once (but to multiple backup locations) and that backup should happen immediately after copying to the hard drive from the camera card, before involving Aperture or any other images management app.
Sorry for the redundant verbosity above but some was copied from previous posts. Also, I reinforce what Léonie said about DVDs. DVDs are way too slow, unreliable, etc. Instead rotate multiple hard drives to achieve redundancy.
HTH
-Allen

Looking for external driver hp555s updatewon't work with windows 8

hi, my dvd/cd rewritable external drive will not work with windows 8, is there an upgrade for this writer, had it for a few years, was working fine with win.7 but can use with win.8, need help!!!! Thanks Gloves54
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hi, My external dvd/cd driver problem has been resolved, I chatted with the support assitants from Acer (my laptop with the problem) they gave me a microsoft driver link which fixed my problem. my dvd/cd external drivers are now recongnized by my computer and can be used. Thanks to Honor Student for trying to help me with my problem. Happy Holiday's!
Gloves54

Icon for external drive??

I've been noticing when booting off of my external drive, the icon for the external drive doesn't appear at the top of the icons in the right hand corner of the finder. Should this happen? It's a little confusing to determine which disk is the startup.
Thanks,
Richard

Richard Skover1 wrote:
I've been noticing when booting off of my external drive, the icon for the external drive doesn't appear at the top of the icons in the right hand corner of the finder. Should this happen?
no. it used to always do that but there were a lot of complaints and this was changed in leopard. now it lets you arrange the drives as you want and keeps finder preferences on reboot.
It's a little confusing to determine which disk is the startup. to see the boot drive go to apple menu->about this mac. the current startup disk will be listed at the bottom.
Thanks,
Richard

Disable spotlight for External Drives

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for