Turning off Spotlight

I need to turn off Spotlight in order to defragment an external drive: Terminal is showing two open files (both named "Spotlight-V100/.store.db") on my external, so my optimization software won't unmount it. I have tried unmounting the drive through the Finder, turning it off, back on and mounting it, as well as re-starting my hard drive, but nothing works. I have tried dragging the drive to the "Privacy" window in the Spotlight preferences, but all that does is open up a window to ask which folders on the drive should be private. I don't use Spotlight anyway; don't like it. (I find it much clunkier than performing a "find" in the Finder.) So how can I get rid of it?

Here's more detail on Spotlight's indexing, including details on how to remove indexing files and possible disadvantages of disabling indexing (such as indicated by other poster).
[X-lab Spotlight tips|http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/stopspotlightindex.html#Anchor-Stopping-47857]

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How to temporarily turn OFF Spotlight Indexing?

It was suggested to me that it is best to turn off spotlight indexing for the duration of an initial clone backup of your system drive. How can this be done? Thanks.

The advice you have been given is incorrect. There is no need whatsoever to turn Spotlight off even temporarily. Just prior to the cloning you should check that indexing of your boot volume is not occurring - simply because the competition for CPU will slow the cloning down. Just click on the Spotlight symbol at the right hand end of your menubar to see that you only have the text entry box.
Also, there is usually no need to have a clone indexed, and so you should put the target volume into the Privacy tab of System Preference / Spotlight -- that will ensure that your target does not start to be indexed during the cloning and that the target volume does not become indexed later. Should you ever need to work on the clone and want it to be indexed, just remove that volume from 'Privacy'.
Ignoring any references to Carbon Copy Cloner, see http://forums.bombich.com/viewtopic.php?t=14531.
Andreas

Trying to turn off spotlight because it's a resource hog. open terminal and enter command but it won't respond or even ask for password.

trying to turn off spotlight because it's a resource hog. open terminal and enter command but it won't respond or even ask for password.

Step #1:
In System Preferences click on Spotlight.
Step #2:
Click on the Privacy tab here.
Step #3:
Click on the + button here and when the window opens click on "Macintosh HD" (or whatever you've named your HD) and then click the Choose button.

Turn off Spotlight

Is there a way to turn off Spotlight? I have a BUNCH of data to transfer to my Mac and Spotlight's indexing is slowing this process down

i use "Spotless" - donation requested software. go to versiontracker.com and search the term "spotless"

How can I turn off Spotlight search on the iPhone6?

I know how to switch off various search options but I want the whole Spotlight search facility disabled. The iPhone 6 is so big that whenever I am swiping between screens I manage to activate the Spotlight search screen. I want it disabled

To the best of my knowledge, you can't disable it. You can go to Settings>Spotlight Search and uncheck all of the boxes this way if you pull it down, you can't accidentally click anything. Other than that you can't do it without jailbreaking. Hope this helps.

How can I turn off spotlight in IPhone 3GS Thank you

Hi, I'm new and I have a problem. I would like to turn of spotlighe but I cannot find anything about this. Someone can help me?
I have a 3GS
thank you
f

You can only enable/disable specific items, read here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3636

Negative Effects of Turning off Spotlight on Time Machine Drive

My external WD HD used exclusively for TM was going into what seemed to be an infinite spotlight reindexing loop after I upgraded to 10.6.8. The only way I have been able to ge it to stop was to select that drive under spotlight privacy settings. Does anyone know of any negative effects of doing this, other than the obvious negative of not being able to use spotlight on my TM backups?
Many thanks!

@sanjampet; What does a link to Xsan servers have to do with Time Machine?
PJGNC wrote:
My external WD HD used exclusively for TM was going into what seemed to be an infinite spotlight reindexing loop after I upgraded to 10.6.8. The only way I have been able to ge it to stop was to select that drive under spotlight privacy settings. Does anyone know of any negative effects of doing this, other than the obvious negative of not being able to use spotlight on my TM backups?
Many thanks!
Read Pondini's excellent TM articles; http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Spotlight can't read the TM volume; it should be excluded as you have done.

How to turn ON Spotlight in Terminal?

I recently upgraded my Dual 1.8 G5 to Tiger, and followed lots of advice to turn off Spotlight. I did this via the Terminal. well, ive decided that i want it back on, but i dont have the directions to turn it back on, only off via the Terminal. I am not a "pro" at the Terminal, its actually a little scary haha so please, if you can help me I would greatly appreciate it! thanks!!!

I believe this does it:
mdutil -i on
Consult the man page for the command help: man mdutil

Time machine super slow on Mac Pro, had to turn of Spotlight

I ran time machine on a external drive and had no problems for years. I swithed to a larger internal hardrive and the problems began. I read about turning off Spotlight and I did and everything worked fast. But do I need to turn it off with every back up? I'm on lion, did mountain lion fix the issue?

It would probably take 12 hrs to zero (long full format, zero all) a 2TB drive, and especially any that are green, that don't have 7.2k spindle speed.
The USB interface and some external cases when used with TimeMachine "drop off" and stop communicating and act as if they are no longer present. So interface like USB plus variable rpm and the fact that green drives will park the head and 'sleep' regularly, causes trouble.
Disk Utility : Help menu. Tells you how to use Erase or Secure Erase.
Use to be there was format or initialize. Now it is all just erase and erase options.
And even then zero all does not always find or map out a weak sector.
Internal would be native SATA interface and avoid the 'other' interface and the external drive bridge (has to have a bridge to talk to SATA over USB or FW interfaces).

Turn off "definition" output in Spotlight

Is there a way to turn off the output of "definitions" for any term you search for in Spotlight?
I've been using Spotlight as my main app launcher now in lieu of QuickSilver, it is as fast now for doing the job. But for some reason, it sometimes outputs the definition first instead of the app and since I'm used to an almost "instantaneous" appearance of the app for launching I usually press return immediately without even looking at the Spotlight results, so in some instances, I press too soon and it's just annoying. I hardly use Spotlight for searching definitions anyway.
Spotlight system preferences doesn't have a checkbox to turn this off although it has checkboxes for everything else. There must be a way of doing this in the terminal.

None that I know about. I'd also like to see it revert to Show All instead of what it thinks is a top hit.
If you want to report this to Apple, send a bug report or enhancement request via its Bug Reporter system. Join the Apple Developer Connection (ADC)—it's free and available for all Mac users and gets you a look at some development software. Since you already have an Apple username/ID, use that. Once a member, go to Apple BugReporter and file your bug report/enhancement request. You'll get a get a Bug ID number; thus, starting a dialog directly with engineering.

I can't search for apps by pulling down on the home screen. Today view in Notification Center is turned off, but today view comes up when I pull down, not Spotlight Search.

I can't search for apps by pulling down on the home screen. Today view in Notification Center is turned off, but today view comes up when I pull down, not Spotlight Search.

Pull down starting in the middle of the home page, not at the top.

My iPhone 5 iOS 7.0.4 still gets hot and drains battery with everything but cellular turned off. What to do?

Have a new iPhone bought in late July 2013. It had zero heating issues and battery issues until the past week (Nov. 2013). Now, the iPhone gets hot to the touch and the battery drains within 2 to 3 hours, EVEN AFTER I HAVE DISABLED ALMOST EVERY FEATURE OF THE iPHONE.
This iPhone has iOS 7.0.4, installed within last 36 hours. I then erased the entire iPhone and restarted it as a New iPhone. Then I went in and turned off everything in the way of Settings that permit disabling. All notifications, spotlight searches, application updating, accessibility features, push features, location services, etc. were turned off or disabled. Brightness is set to Auto. Don't use the iCloud.
After doing all of that, which essentially rendered this iPhone just a clunky old cell phone, not even using WiFi, I connected to iTunes on my computer and restored my backed up apps, photos.
After the Restore, I went back into settings and made certain that, again, all notifications, app services, location services, updatings, etc. were disabled, still.
The problem persists.
It seems the only solution is to get rid of all my Apps and never use WiFi, or iCloud, or Mail. That is unacceptable.
Does anyone have a solution, besides my calling on the warranty on this phone?

Basic troubleshooting from the User's Guide is reset, restart, restore (first from backup then as new). Try each of these in order until the issue is resolved.
If the problem continues, take the device to Apple for evaluation and possible replacement.

Ken Burns effect remains even when turned off

I'm having huge problems viewing slideshows with iPhoto 5. I cannot get the Ken Burns effect off, even when it is not selected, and when I select a small number of photos to show, and click view slideshow, the music starts, but only the first photo appears. Has anyone else seen these problems? I've tried replacing the iPhoto preferences, but that did not help. Thanks.

Thank you for responding. I guess I did not pay strict attention to turning off the Ken Burns effict in both places. One other thing that made it peculiar was that the first slide would display and then it would wait for several seconds before showing the next slide even though I had set it to display each slide for only 2 seconds. I'm wondering why that was? Could Spotlight have been indexing the drive and slowing things down? It seems OK now. Also, strangely still, when I click on the red X to close the window of iPhoto, then entire application quits. The whole thing is acting quirky. Comments most welcome. Thanks again.

Mail shows up in several different inboxes, including the one it was intended. How can I turn off notifications for these duplicate messages?

I would like to turn off notifications for duplicate mail messages.
Thanks,
Ralph Sapertein

Kurt told you how to turn it off. To learn the Spotlight differences between Tiger and Leopard, see http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/Leopard/leospot.html and my mod to Finder's Find at http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6725932 for what you can change so you can find stuff excluded by Leopard's default structure.

Turn off location in calendar ios8

Location field in calendar won't turn off in iOS 8. This is an older iPad but don't know which one.
I tried Settings then Privacy then Location Services then Calendar. My setting is Never.
But I still get the map stuff (I use the location field for various notes about the event). When I enter a note, the pin appears and I cannot save my text entry.

I was very annoyed by the huge lists that the Calendar expected me to select from when typing into the Location field for a new event. After doing the following, the list was limited to locations that I had typed in previously elsewhere in the calendar, and if I wanted to type in a new location or short note it was easy to do.
Settings > General > Spotlight Search - Deselect Spotlight suggestions; deselect Bing search results
If you have Location Services set to On, which I didn't, it might perhaps be necessary to go to Settings > Privacy > location Services > System services > and turn of Spotlight Suggestions. I do not know what else either of these changes will affect, but the first one resolved the issue I was having with entering locations into a calendar event.

Turning off Spotlight

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