How to fix Baloo File Index --> Disable it!
Problem
Many desktop indexers as they are implemented in KDE unfortunately are problematic. They are slow and resource hogs, taking up gigabytes of drive just to store indexes of files you won't use. Worse yet, they habitually lag my machine. The problem really arises when I'm copying multiple gigabytes of files over USB (but usually less than 30 files total). The Baloo file extraction process starts up and lags frequently.Unfortunately there is not neat graphical way to disable the Baloo indexer.
Quoting one of the Baloo authors:
Here is how to disable Baloo from operating. Edit the file
to (or add if there is not such option)
to disable baloo.
I know it is way too easy but it did work for me and also for the guy who posted this simple solution on this page.
There is no explicit “Enable/Disable” button any more. We would like to promote the use of searching and feel that Baloo should never get in the users way. However, we are smart about it and IF you add your HOME directory to the list of “excluded folders”, Baloo will switch itself off since it no longer has anything to index.
Solution
Here is how to disable Baloo from operating. Edit the file $HOME/.kde/share/config/baloofilerc. It is enough to edit it and change the option:Indexing-Enabled=true
to (or add if there is not such option)
Indexing-Enabled=false
to disable baloo.
I know it is way too easy but it did work for me and also for the guy who posted this simple solution on this page.
Posts
I just crossed paths with baloo when I noticed some hickups in the system, even though I have plenty of room (16 GB, 1.8 TB HDD space of which more than 1 TB is free). So I checked which apps are consuming resources and found baloo. Ok, it's not too bad. But instead of the option to exclude folders where to search, I would rather have the option to decide in which to search/index the files. Because I sure would like to make use of it, but it definitely doesn't need to index all the system and configuration files. I would like it to search my documents and some other folders, that's it.
ReplyDeleteIf you edit ~/.config/baloofilerc you can specify what directories to index. Change the line
Deletefolders[$e]=$HOME/
to the places you want indexed. You may have to completely turn off indexing, remove $HOME/.local/share/baloo/index-lock, remove $HOME/.local/share/baloo/index , and restart.
But it's great when it works, you can find files anywhere by content in Dolphin.