Why on earth? - PolarisX

There are plenty of reasons, such as the index takes up too much space, or it messes up file copies to other drives, and some people just don't like it.

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Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 03:32 AM PDT

Why on earth? - mrbach2

How about if you want to use iMovie, and you need a break from Spotlight continually indexing as you modify iMovie files. Spotlight makes iMovie feel like it is running under System 6 on a Mac Classic. The old find was perfectly adequate, in fact it was superior because it was easier to find invisible files.

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Thursday, May 26 2005 @ 11:11 AM PDT

Why on earth? - iMovieGuy

Could just disable the searching by putting the projects in spotlight excluded directories.

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Saturday, May 28 2005 @ 05:57 AM PDT

Why on earth? - PolarisX

doesn't stop the index usage and cpu usage

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Tuesday, June 14 2005 @ 11:30 AM PDT

Flexibility - Polar11

You will find that there are times when you just want to turn Spotlight off temporarily, then turn it back on later. For example, I often switch back and forth between drives to run various maintenance routines such as Tech Tool Pro Disk Optimization, Disk Warrior Rebuild Directory, Tiger Cache Cleaner, Wipe Data, etc. Once I have my main drive in a super-clean state, I then use CCC to make a clone of my primary drive to a back-up drive. Even if I choose to "exclude Spotlight from SEARCHING" one volume or both, it still INDEXES both drives. Use of a drive may be limited (or not at all available) while it is being indexed. Once indexing starts, there is no way to stop the indexing function without disabling Spotlight entirely beforehand. It is a pain to have to wait for Spotlight to finish indexing while I am in the middle of a time consuming set of maintenance routines. I prefer to just be able to turn it off completely, then turn it back on and let it index to its heart's content once I am finished.

Also some folks have the need to routinely plug in (and unplug) external drives which they use to store extensive data files such as photos. Every time you plug in a "new" drive, Spotlight begins indexing and takes us precious resources and making the drive that is being indexed unavailable just when you need it most.

It just makes sense to be able to turn Spotlight on and off when it becomes advantageous to do so.

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Tuesday, June 14 2005 @ 12:12 PM PDT