Comments on: Disable Spotlight in Mac OS X 10.5

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 08:52:30 +0000

If you undo what you did to disable spotlight then by difanation it will re-enable it. I have tested this and it works.

Asoming that you do exactly! the opsite.

Make shore the the file “com.apple.Spotlight.plist” is in the folder “/System/Library/LaunchAgents/” and the file” com.apple.metadata.mds.plist” is in the folder “/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/”

It’s easey to misstype the folder names.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 08:42:27 +0000

First sorry for the spelling I am dislex….

Reading the post if you moved the folders “System/LibraryLaunch……..” as well as the files “com.apple……..” then that’s the problem. If the backups you have are “TimeMachine” one then your answer is easey. Turn you computer on with the instalation DVD in the drive and when you hear the chime press and hold the “c” key this should boot onto the install DVD you will then be asked to chouse the languge and then you will see the install screen there is an option in the menu’s iver in the pannel in the middel of the screen or in the menus on the menubar to re-store computer from backup folow the instuctions and after some houars (tacks 5 hours on my system with 300GB of data) you should be back to all working.

I am not being roude Now just a bit of advice; now go on a computer couse and learmn the difences between Files and Folders.

I hope this helps

By: jsp76

jsp76 — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 02:49:14 +0000

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE IS CORRECT ONLY FOR DISABLING SPOTLIGHT. IT’S INSTRUCTIONS FOR RE-ENABLING SPOTLIGHT DO NOT WORK.

The disabling part worked. I just tried to enable Spotlight again by returning the files to their proper directories and rebooting as indicated above, and Spotlight is still disabled. It is the same situation as the comment above. Please either respond with an explanation of how to re-enable Spotlight properly, or remove this article so that others don’t make the same mistake of relying on it.

By: John Thiede

John Thiede — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 20:41:28 +0000

I need help, so i sent the above files to my dropbox and of course spotlight was gone just like i originally wanted cause i never used it’s menubar feature. but i realized, whoops! this just shuts it off completely and i can’t search my finder. which i didn’t think the two were connected. so i did as you said and put the files back in their proper places, but i still can’t search in my finder. What might have happened and what can i do to fix it?

By: Jules

Jules — Fri, 28 May 2010 06:51:26 +0000

Thanks for the tip. My Leopard mac is using 10% less memory (initially @ startup) with Spotlight shut off. This tip completely removes it from the menubar and stops indexing. I never ever have used spotlight, because I guess I’m not lazy?

By: can canak

can canak — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:37:53 +0000

hello,

i also hated spotlight slowing my system down and did EXACTLY as you desribed here. and now my computer doesn’t even START. i hear the chime, i see the gray apple logo and the spinning wheel then it reboots itself, then again and again and again..

do you have any idea how can i solve this problem, or restore the files that i deleted (i have backups)..?

thanks