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I don't want to turn Spotlight off completely, I just want to turn it off for one particular folder in my homedir called 'nospotlight`

Another question talks about how to disable Spotlight completely; but I want to keep it running, just not indexing one particular folder.

Community
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James Polley
  • 6,790

2 Answers2

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You can add that folder to the Spotlight privacy list.

  1. Open System Preferences and click Spotlight.
  2. Click Privacy.
  3. Drag folders or disks to add them to the Privacy list, or click the Add (+) button to browse for an item.
  4. To remove an item, select it and click Delete (-).
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You can add an empty file named .metadata_never_index to a folder.

Or you can suffix the folder name with .noindex — e.g. Trip Photos.noindex

Sources: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/258791 | https://www.techjunkie.com/three-ways-to-prevent-spotlight-from-indexing-items-on-your-mac/

Patrick Smith
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