Windows indexing is a good feature that will make file searching run faster in Windows. But, when the actual indexing task is running, it consumes a lot of processor, memory and disk resources. In the end, it will significantly slow down your PC, a lot. If you think you don’t really need this feature, you can easily pause or stop the indexing feature.
How to Stop Windows from Indexing a drive or folder
In the following example, I will stop the indexing feature on an external drive. To do this, follow these steps:
- Open Explorer
- Right-click the drive and then click Properties
- In the General tab, uncheck the option that says: Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties.
It will take some time to finish this process. Especially on a large drive.
Another way to manage the indexing service in Windows is via Ïndexing Options in Control Panel.
- Click Start
- Type “Indexing Option” and you should see the Indexing Options listed there. Click it to open
- You will see some folders that are listed for indexing
- Click Modify and remove the folder you want to exclude from indexing.
I would prefer to use third-party software such as Everything that does the file searching/indexing a lot faster than the Windows Indexing feature. It does not consume resources as much as Windows indexing.
