Spotlight slowed down dramatically

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groutchmeuh wrote:

… I'd like to exclude the spotlight index but I can't find where it is.…

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Try http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/stopspotlightindex.html

Regular disclaimer: I'm not tech support :)

The spotlight index is in the hidden folder .Spotlight-V100 at the top level of each writeable storage device you have mounted.

Just to see if I could, I just did the following to exclude the spotlight folder on my main drive.  To do so, I did the following:

1. Open Terminal.app (found in /Applicatoins/Utilities/)
2. Type

   sudo open /.Spotlight-V100/ 
   

3. You will be prompted for your password, which is the same one you use to change your Sophos preferences.
4. A Finder window will open, highlighting the hidden folder.
5. In Sophos Anti-Virus, open Preferences, select On Access Scanning, click the Excluded Items tab, and then click the lock to authenticate.
6. Click the + icon, and an Open dialog box appears.
7. Drag the .Spotlight-V100 folder from the finder window into the Open dialog, and it will be selected. 
8. Click Open, and the hidden path is added to your exclusion list.
9. Close the Finder window.

However, I have found absolutely no difference between having it excluded and not, personally.  Maybe the slowdown is due to current spotlight indexing?  I believe that this should be slightly slowed down, as Sophos Anti-Virus will scan each file as Spotlight indexes it.  Once indexing is complete, spotlight speed should go back to normal.

Anyone have further comments on this?

Whilst indexing is incomplete, the Spotlight menu is non-functional. 

The opening poster describes a delay, so I guess that the menu is functional …

Thank you;

I followed your steps and excluded spotlight index from Access scanning, and reactiuvated access scanning (with access scanning turned off, Spotlight has noral speed. 

Spotlight exclusion from access scanning does not re-establish normal spotlight  speed.

Only access scanning inactivation seems to do it so far. 

I think my indexing is over because there is no dot in the spotlight icon up right in the corner. 

Argh !

Well, 

It seems SAV hampers Spotlight in such a way that I have to uninstall it. 

The only way to not slow spotlight is to inactivate access screening.

Is SAV of any use without access screening ? 

Thanks for your ideas 

Have you done full scan on your boot volume? If not then do that first and after that try Spotlight again. Personally I haven't seen any noticeable difference between Spotlight speed if on-access scan is on or off. Regarding usability with on-access scanning off, you can naturally use manual scanning so you might want to set a custom scan for download folder etc. and ran it every now and then. Also do run the full system boot volume scan regularly if you don't use on-access scanning. However, as said my Mac's are not suffering from Spotlight slowdown when on-access is turned on. So try running full scan on all your volumes and try Spotlight again.

Hi

maybe Onyx helps. Onyxs has an Option to restart, reset, the spotlight - index.

you welcome

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Is SAV of any use without access screening ? 

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If you disable on-access scanning, there remain the on-demand features of SAV. 

Then the questions you should ask yourself include:

"For protection how should I, and how often will be I happy to, scan on demand?"