MattsCreative Posted May 18, 2014 Share Posted May 18, 2014 Spotlight, introduced by Apple with OS X 10.4 Tiger, is a powerful system tool that allows for fast and easy searches of your entire Mac and any attached drives. For single users on secure Macs, it’s one of the best ways to find your files, app data, and even to launch applications. But if you share your Mac with others, or frequently use it in a public place, you may wish to temper Spotlight’s reach. Here are three ways to prevent Spotlight from indexing items on your Mac. Exclude Items Using Spotlight’s PreferencesInstead of turning the whole thing off, you can simply exclude certain drives or folders from Spotlight by using its Preferences. Head to System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy. Here you can choose which drives or folders to exclude from Spotlight’s index (note that yours may be empty if you only have a single drive in your Mac). Adding a file or folder to this list will exclude it and its contents from Spotlight, meaning that they won’t appear during a Spotlight or Finder search. To add items, you can either click the plus icon and navigate to the drive or folder you want to exclude, or you can simply drag and drop drives and folders into the list. To remove items from the list, and thus make them searchable by Spotlight once again, select the item and press the minus icon at the bottom-left side of the list. This is an easy way to manage Spotlight’s reach, but it includes one critical flaw: anyone with access to your user account can simply head to Spotlight’s Preferences and see exactly what you’ve chosen to hide. It’s like a treasure map to your private files and secrets. Thankfully, there’s still one final option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris1111 Posted May 19, 2014 Share Posted May 19, 2014 Thanks for the tip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v.kouk Posted May 19, 2014 Share Posted May 19, 2014 (edited) It still doesnt work to me . I Cant use time machine & spotlight both . - Fixed Edited May 20, 2014 by v.kouk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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