How to Stop Spotlight From Indexing the External Drives

Stop Spotlight from indexing an external hard drive.

Spotlight is Apple OS X's built-in search technology that helps you find anything on your computer. As soon as you start typing the name of what you're looking for in the Spotlight search box in the menu bar, results will begin to appear. In order for Spotlight to give you quick results, it first has to index everything on your computer. If you have a lot of files on an external hard drive, Spotlight can take hours to index it, slowing down your computer in the process. You can easily prevent Spotlight from indexing external drives.

Instructions

1. Click the "Apple" symbol on the top left of the screen, and select "System Preferences."

2. Click on "Spotlight."

3. Click on the "Privacy" tab.

4. Drag the icon of the external hard drive you don't want Spotlight to index into the privacy pane. This will prevent Spotlight from searching in the external hard drive.

5. Click the red button at the top of the window to close it.

References

• Apple: Spotlight
• Macworld: Bugs & Fixes: Can't Stop Spotlight