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Tiger Spotlight Less Then Optimal

Posted by Hemos on from the slower-then-molasses dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "Spotlight turns out to be a major pain for many users because it can't be turned off and insists on indexing volumes each time they are mounted. Additionally, Spotlight doesn't come with a manual to teach you how to create complex queries. Most simple available queries --style popup menu selection-- are not powerful enough to be really useful. A tutorial on http://www.scribent.com/ will explain how you can optimize Spotlight's behaviour and get the most of it, but all in all it seems like Apple has been overhyping in the extremes."

7 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Turn Spotlight off, then by Silas · · Score: 5, Informative
    There are numerous hints floating around on how to disable Spotlight. I did this on a slower Powerbook, and it worked, actually making Tiger feel as fast as I would have expected with a major OS upgrade. I *really* like Spotlight, but that hardware was suffering at its hands.

    Silas

  2. The Only Thing Extremely Overhyped Is The /. Piece by Llywelyn · · Score: 3, Informative

    For what it is worth I haven't had most of the problems being described. I use spotlight every day and while advanced queries are nice (and a manual would be even nicer) simple queries are *far* from "not powerful enough to be really useful."

    Sure, it has some issues (report them to apple as bugs when you find them, it is the only way they know about them), but it is fast and it Works For Me(TM).

    Now if only someone would create a LaTeX mdimporter...

    --
    Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
  3. Can't turn it off? by skinfitz · · Score: 4, Informative

    System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy > + > (Choose your hard drives)

    Not exactly 'turning it off' but it does stop it indexing and therefore chewing system performance.

  4. more info by rakerman · · Score: 3, Informative

    Macintouch has a report with a lot more info.

  5. Re:Links please? by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Informative
    In short: With Spotlight, you can find anything on your computer as quickly as you type.

    Well, I was about to reply to this saying it's bullshit, that spotlight is much slower than that. And of course I wanted some actual numbers to back me up. So I did a search. And I have to admit it really did find things as quickly as I could type it.

    This is a big change from when I first installed 10.4. I don't know if the indexing wasn't complete, or if they made a big improvement in 10.4.1, but now it's really, really useful. I tried several more searches and each was as fast.

  6. Re:Definitely not great here by mclaincausey · · Score: 3, Informative
    Err... you know you can disable Spotlight in specific folders, right?

    Under the Spotlight System Preference pane, click on the privacy pane and add your pr0n folder.

    --
    (%i1) factor(777353);
    (%o1) 777353
  7. Yeah, but it also kills searching inside Mail.app by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to the very page you linked, this hint "does kill searching in Mail.app", so you fix A and break B, so it's kinda, you know, like, a no-hint. :-(