Indexing is Very Slow

Hi all, I am trying to index my computer listed in my systems. I yes I do have 2 nvmes, 2 SATA SSDs, and 4x HDDs. When I had Windows 10, the indexing service didn't take days to index. In fact I think it took less than 24 hours to index my entire computer. I upgraded to Windows 11 then did a clean install on top of that upgrade. I actually did a cloud install to make sure there is nothing, coming from my previous Windows 10 install.

Fast fwd to the last 2 days and I tried running Windows indexing because I couldn't search for anything on my drives. Note, I only wanted to index my SSDs first before touching my HDDs. In 2 days and 20 hours, indexing has only indexed 1,338,267 items. Is this normal? This seems ridiculously slow imo. If it is indeed slow, what can I do to make it go faster? I just enabled Disable indexer backoff shortly after before making this post but I don't think it's making much of a difference. Is this just how Windows 11 is?

Do you use Outlook? There's a setting to disable searching of Public Folders which might speed up your indexing.

Windows 11 search indexing extremely slow on fast box, already tried every common recommendation - Microsoft Q&A

Some of the tutorials Brink created re indexing:

• Enable or Disable Search Indexing in Windows 11
• Add or Remove Search Index Locations in Windows 11
• Reset and Rebuild Search Index in Windows 11
• Check Search Indexing Status in Windows 11
• Turn On or Off Enhanced Mode for Search Indexer in Windows 11
• Turn On or Off Respect Power Settings when Indexing in Windows 11
• Enable or Disable File Search and File Read in Copilot on Windows 11
• Search Local Files using Copilot app on Windows 11

By default, only personal files are indexed. On a modern PC this should take only a few hours at most and usually isn't even noticeable.

If you set indexing to include all folders, including system folders, yes it could take a very long time. There usually isn't a good reason to index an entire drive.

garlin said:

Do you use Outlook? There's a setting to disable searching of Public Folders which might speed up your indexing.

Windows 11 search indexing extremely slow on fast box, already tried every common recommendation - Microsoft Q&A

Click to expand...

I have outlook installed through Office 2024 but I have never clicked on it/set it up. THis is my personal Desktop so I use gmail lol

antspants said:

Some of the tutorials Brink created re indexing:

• Enable or Disable Search Indexing in Windows 11
• Add or Remove Search Index Locations in Windows 11
• Reset and Rebuild Search Index in Windows 11
• Check Search Indexing Status in Windows 11
• Turn On or Off Enhanced Mode for Search Indexer in Windows 11
• Turn On or Off Respect Power Settings when Indexing in Windows 11
• Enable or Disable File Search and File Read in Copilot on Windows 11
• Search Local Files using Copilot app on Windows 11

Click to expand...

According to my regedit.exe Respect power settings is off. I assume this means index runs as fast as it can regardless of power settings?
And when it says classic vs enhanced, I take it classic is faster?
I am a bit brain damaged so my cognitive skills and ability to do basic stuff is hard but am I to understand that Windows 11 has this ai called Co-pilot that makes searching faster? I am not used to ai. been dealing with this brain damage for 2 years, but I am very wary of ai from what I have heard and don't know how to use it

TraderGary said:

By default, only personal files are indexed. On a modern PC this should take only a few hours at most and usually isn't even noticeable.

If you set indexing to include all folders, including system folders, yes it could take a very long time. There usually isn't a good reason to index an entire drive.

Click to expand...

Ah hmm ok. See i set it to index all those SSDs. The entirety of those drives. So that means not just "personal" files, but also all those program files, file installation files, etc. You're saying this is why it's slow for me? Unless I am now just more cognizant of it, I don't remember it taking this long but maybe I didn't pay attention to it on Windows 10

Yes, Enhanced Mode is notoriously slow so keep this mode turned off if you don't need it. To speed the indexer up further, remove all the search index locations that you never use, especially ones that are located on a slower drive unit. Personally, I, simply removed them all, as I use Everything (from voidtools.com). Removing all the search index locations is a (slightly) safer bet than turning the Search Indexing off completely. In Everything, you do need to rebuild the index to eliminate inconsistencies from time to time, but it's blazing fast. If you have a large amount of personal files and you add them all to the search index locations of Windows, searching for a file with Windows Search can take multiple times longer than rebuilding the index of Everything. Then when you search the same file in Everything, the search result shows up instantly in Everything. Instantly. Like, RIGHT NOW. Don't ask yourself why Microsoft is still lagging hopelessly behind free stuff like Everything. You're only going to worsen your brain damage if you do.

garlin said:

Do you use Outlook? There's a setting to disable searching of Public Folders which might speed up your indexing.

Windows 11 search indexing extremely slow on fast box, already tried every common recommendation - Microsoft Q&A

Click to expand...

Win 11 25H2, Outlook 365: I have tried to follow the linked article to exclude indexing of Public Folders, but I cannot expand the Outlook entry in indexing options to do so. Am I missing something here?

jacobacci said:

Win 11 25H2, Outlook 365: I have tried to follow the linked article to exclude indexing of Public Folders, but I cannot expand the Outlook entry in indexing options to do so. Am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

I'm also using Outlook 365, don't want anything excluded from it, and when I had the same performance issue a long time ago (back on Windows 10), the following worked for me: