SubscribeYou may want to turn off Spotlight to increase system performance or to prevent it from indexing personal data. Here’s how to do it under Mac OS X Tiger.
Launch Terminal from the Utilites folder.
To disable Spotlight, type the following and press Return:
% sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
To disable it permanently, type this instead:
% sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
To enable Spotlight type the following and press Return:
% sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
To enable it permanently, type this instead:
% sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
For instructions on how to do this in Mac OS X Leopard, see How to completely disable Spotlight.
by Dan, on December 22 2007 @ 7:20 pm
First: Doesn’t work (in 10.5.1)
sysadm[~]$ sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
Password:
launchctl: Error unloading: com.apple.metadata.mds
Any ideas? Yes, I typed the admin password correctly.
Second, there’s a typo, last line:
For instructions on how to do this in Mac OS X Leopard, see
^^^^^^^
How to completely disable Spotlight.
That should say Tiger, no?
by admin, on December 23 2007 @ 12:43 am
You’re right, and thanks Dan. I had been writing so many articles for Leopard, I forgot that this one was for Tiger. I have made changes to reflect this. If you need changes for Leopard, see the other link I supplied.
by Elliot Wilen, on April 5 2009 @ 2:25 pm
Don’t you still have it backward? There’s no /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist on the Tiger (10.4) machines I’m looking at, but there is one on the Leopard (10.5) machine.
by OS X Tiger: Enable/Disable Spotlight | Technipages | LastJediMaster, on June 17 2009 @ 10:38 pm
[...] Spotlight | Technipages Published on June 18, 2009 in Local. Tags: No Tags. OS X Tiger: Enable/Disable Spotlight | TechnipagesYou may want to turn off Spotlight to increase system performance or to prevent it from indexing [...]