How to Disable Indexing in Windows 11 || How to Disable Windows 11 Search Indexing (Solution)
If you really don’t use Windows Search much, you can disable indexing completely by turning off the Windows Search service. You’ll still be able to search–it will just take longer without an index.
If you’re thinking of disabling Search because it’s slowing things down, we recommend trimming down what files and folders are getting indexed and seeing if that works for you first. And if you’re experiencing crashes or inaccurate searches, try rebuilding your search index. You should also note that other apps–notably Microsoft Outlook–use Windows Search to allow searching within those apps, so you’ll have to do without fast searching in those, as well.
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When you search for files and folders, Windows automatically detects the folders where you conduct the searches and adds them to the index. The index is created and maintained by Windows Search, a Windows service that works in the background. You can't uninstall the Microsoft Search Indexer because it is not a program, but you can stop the service from the Services section of the Control Panel. If you feel that the index doesn't help you find specific files faster, you can safely stop the service.
First of all, let me say that this post doesn’t refer to the Windows Experience Index, but rather to the indexing feature in Windows 11, which is related to file search. We briefly go through its features and explain how to enable and disable it.
This tutorial will apply for computers, laptops, desktops, and tablets running the Windows 11 operating system (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) from all supported hardware manufactures, like Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo, and Samsung.
