How do I disable Spotlight?

Spotlight is currently driving me mad!
Certain key commands in Photoshop/Illustrator activate Spotlight when I don't want it activated.
Frankly, I never use Spotlight anyway. If I need to find anything, Apple-F suits my needs perfectly well.
So is there any way of permanently disabling Spotlight?

Unfortunately the people who drop into threads with arcane terminal commands don't seem to realize that the vast majority of users do NOT want to deal with a command line. You are correct to be terrified of Terminal if you don't know precisely what you are doing. There are free utilities to accomplish almost anything a terminal session can do. One such utility is Onyx and the latest version can disable Spotlight if you so choose. These utilities basically enter the unix commands for you by just clicking the desired action. You do not have to futz around with the Terminal application.
But take a closer look at Mike N.'s advice first.

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How to hide/disable Spotlight on a client by using Workgroup Manager

Dear Apple Pro's
I'm looking for a script or Policy whatever to hide/disable spotlight on a client. Iam using WGM for policy's to disable some applications, but I can not find an option disable spotlight on a client. I hide a lot directory's systemfiles but if I type in the spotlight "terminal" on the client and click on it the terminal will start.
I've 400 iMacs on a school it makes me desperate.
Hope to hear from you pro's!

One possible solution might be to change the permissions on the Spotlight app on all client machines. The command would be:
sudo chmod 600 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Search
That way only root can run Spotlight. One may be able to roll that out via a startup script, too.

How do i disable spotlight dropdown menu in Safari?

I want to have a clean browser and type in a new url without a long list of irrelevant suggestions being displayed. How do I do that?

I clicked the wrong button. I tried that and nothing changes. I still get a dropdown menu of many suggestions. I unchecked everything. I still get the menu of selections and guesses. frustrating. I can use firefox "cleanly" but since I upgraded to yosemite, my presentations now look more and more unprofessional.

How can I disable spellcheck in "Spotlight Comments" window?

How can I disable the daft spellchecking in the “Spotlight Comments” section of OS 10.8.3’s “Get Info” windows? I don’t have that problem in my older Mac, which has OS 10.5.8.

I don't really see it as a march backwards, but then I'm not a great speller or typist so I'm happy to have it check my comments.
Is there some specific reason you call the service "daft"? I assume you know you can always add words to the spelling dictionary. I have done that for a few made up "words" I use as tags. That way, I know if I have accidentally misspelled them & there is no mystery about why a Spotlight search doesn't include them.
Would that work for you?

When i search for mp3 files spotlight shows id3 tags instead of filenames as it used to do !!! I DONT want that .. how can i disable it !!!!!???????

when i search for mp3 files spotlight shows id3 tags instead of filenames as it used to do !!! I DONT want that .. how can i disable it !!!!!???????

Sorry, my handful of mp3's had the file name as the id3 tag name.
So, I am seeing the same thing as you.
Oddly, a while back I was trying to help someone out in Mountain Lion that wanted to see the id3 tags in the Finder.
It's all a bit silly. They should have added columns instead or changing it to tag song name.
They are transitioning to having everything reflect the content and not the file system, so this may not be reversible.
The best I think you can do is provide feedback: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

How can I disable the low ink warning messages.

How can I disable the low ink warning messages. The Photosmart Plus B210 printer is connected wirelessly to my Mac over a home network..

Open up a terminal (use spotlight to search for 'terminal')
Find the process ID of the HP Device monitor by doing
ps -eo pid,command | grep "HP Device Monitor"
The process id will be the number that is printed. Sometimes you may see two results, the correct result to use should print "/Library/Printers/hp/hpio/HP Device Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/HP Device Monitor"
Then using the number you got from the first step, run the following command.
sudo kill -9 <pid>; sudo rm -rf "/Library/Printers/hp/hpio/HP Device Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/HP Device Monitor"
You will be prompted for your admin password.
Below is an example of when I ran it:
John-MacBook-Pro:~ john$ ps -eo pid,command | grep "HP Device Monitor"
90509 /Library/Printers/hp/hpio/HP Device Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/HP Device Monitor
90513 grep "HP Device Monitor"
John-MacBook-Pro:~ john$ sudo kill -9 90509; sudo rm -rf "/Library/Printers/hp/hpio/HP Device Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/HP Device Monitor"

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.

Disabling spotlight search

Is there a way to disable spotlight search?

"pvonk" is incorrect. Yes ZacPavs you can disable things from Spotlight Search and here's how..
This is an easy fix. Unfortunately I had the same issue at first. Why can I still see my deleted texts/e-mails in Spotlight Search when I hit the home key? Well, I hope this will solve all of your issues. It sure solved mine. I have a basic iPhone 4 running iOS 6.1.3 ..
Here goes:
1.) Go to Settings
2.) Go to "General"
3.) Go to "Spotlight Search"
You will notice that everything has a check mark next to it. Simply click on "Mail" and "Messages" and this will eliminate all of your old deleted texts/e-mails from Spotlight Search. You can also choose to get rid of Contacts, Applications, Music, Podcasts, Videos, Audiobooks, Notes, Events, Voice Memos and Reminders.
You're ALL set! Now text away and don't worry about your significant other being able to see all those old dirty deleted texts and e-mails. . Take it EZ

How can I disable Firefox from automatically opening on system startup on my Mac - unchecking the "open at login" does not work?

We have Firefox 10.o on our Macbook Pro OS X 10.5.8. I prefer using Firefox as my browser but my husband prefers Safari for now because of a long history of bookmarks and saved information he doesn't have time to re-do. He is tired of Firefox automatically opening when we start up the laptop, and even when we uncheck the "open at login" it still opens at login every time. He is about to uninstall it because of this. How can we disable? It does NOT show up in our account on the Mac OS as an application that starts at login, so we can't disable it there.

For those of you running Windows, I found this on another site. (Unfortunately, not before getting totally disgusted and switching to chrome.)
1. click start (or the windows flag button at the bottom left) 2. in the "search programs and files" or the RUN dialog box, enter "msconfig.exe" or "msconfig". 3. That should open the system configuration program. 4. click the "Startup" tab at the top of the opened program. 5. Under the "startup item" column, look for Mozilla firefox. 6. uncheck that one. 7. Click OK or apply. 8. click "exit without restart". 9. you're good to go.

How can I disable iMessages from archiving messages and attachments?

I noticed while browsing ~/Library\Messages/ that iMessages has been archiving my messages (Archive folder) and saving attachments (in a separate Attachment folder). Under the settings for iMessages on OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion, I don't see any options to disable this. The only thing close to that is already unchecked: Save history when conversations are closed.
Any ideas why iMessages is saving all this information? How do I disable it? My concern is that it's going to keep accumulating data overtime. I don't want to keep having to go back in there and delete those two folders constantly.

Hi,
This somewhat date back to the way iChat's Saved Chats were once Stored.
At iChat 5 (in Snow Leopard) you could choose to see the last chat - (when opening an new chat with a person you had chatted with before) or parts of the Last Chat in terms of the Last so many IMs.
Example Pic of iChat 5's Prefs
Since then the management choices of the Save Chats has changed in both iChat 6 and Messages.
Messages stores Chats two ways if they are iMessages.
You can elect to Save them in Messages > Preferences > Messages.
It also store the chat.db and other databases items which includes the Attachment items
The chat.db is the bit that fill in the "history" if you iMessage the same person even if you are not saving the Chat in a formal sense in the App's Preferences.
This is irrespective if your delete the Conversation from the Messages main window.
How big these Databases get obviously depends on your iMessages usage.
Striker's link seems to be about a similar issue on an iPhone (I presume it transfers to other iOS devices) but I am not sure that it is relevant in this situation.
Edit.
I should have been clear that you cannot change the database behaviour.
9:49 pm Sunday; October 6, 2013
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously
Message was edited by: Ralph Johns (UK)

How can I disable imessage from old phone?

how can I disable imessage from old phone number / iphone I no longer have?

iMesssage to old phone
If you move to another phone and forget to turn off iMessage then read “if you no longer have the device in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5661 If you still cannot resolve it call Apple http://support.apple.com/kb/HE57
To deactivate iMessage http://support.apple.com/kb/ts5185
Read http://m.samsung.com/us/support/SupportOwnersFAQPopup.do?faq_id=FAQ00053450&fm_s eq=62995

How can i disable imessage from automatically starting up when i turn on macbook air?

how can i disable imessage from automatically starting up when i turn on macbook air? i dont know my imessages to pop up on my laptop when it turns on. But i dont want to disable imessage totally on my macbook.

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
First of all, check that Messages is closed when you turn off your MacBook. This is so important because, by default, OS X will reopen all opened apps the next time you start your Mac.
Apart from that, when you go to  > Shut Down, or  > Restart, in the window you see to restart or turn off your MacBook, unmark "Reopen windows when logging back in". This will avoid that your Mac opens all opened apps the next time you start the MacBook, so Messages won't start automatically at startup

How do you disable voice control on iphone 4

Voice Control doesnt seem to work to create a text message on iphone 4 like it does on the 4S. How do I disable Voice Control all together on a 4?

capsjenwalker wrote:
How do I disable Voice Control all together on a 4?
Sorry, you can't. There is no setting to completely disable such.

How do you disable voice announcements on the Gusto 3 ?

How do you disable Voice Announcements on the Gusto 3 >

Thanks for reaching out to us, tobrien459! May I ask what readouts you are getting in order for me to make sure I provide you with the most accurate information?
I'm thinking you are looking for this:
From the Home screen, press the Left Soft Key
Menu > Settings > Accessibility > Easy Set-up.
2. Follow the screen prompts to choose settings for
Full Readout, Menu Readout, Digit Dial Readout,
Alert Readout, TXT Message Readout, Browser
Readout, and Flip Open & Talk
Let me know if this is what you need.
TamaraH_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

How do I disable the automatic startup on HP Photosmart Premier when I turn my computer on?

Someone else posted ths question a month ago, but still no answers. Anyone?
How do I disable the automatic startup on HP Photosmart Premier when I turn my computer on?
Windows XP, SP3 operating system recently re-installed so I also reinstalled my printer software. Now, for some reason, each time I turn my computer on, my HP Photosmart C4100 all-in-one photosmart premier software opens. It is not in my startup. This slows down my computer terribly, which is why I never used the program before my re-install. How can I disable this feature? I only print, I don't use it for photos.
Any help here is appreciated.

Run msconfig.exe from the start button (type in msconfig). When it comes up go to the Startup tab and find and deselect the HP product you do not want to start. Save and reboot computer. Now try.
Say thanks by clicking the Kudos Thumbs Up to the right in the post.
If my post resolved your problem, please mark it as an Accepted Solution ...
I worked for HP but now I'm retired!

How do I disable Spotlight?

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