Windows Search is indexing

Why it matters

The indexer reads files and writes its catalogue to the drive while it works. After a big install, a Windows update or a move of your Documents folder it can run for a long while, and a game loading levels at the same time stutters as the two share the drive.

What to do

• Wait: it settles once the catalogue is up to date, usually within an hour of whatever changed.
• Pause it for a day: Windows Settings > Privacy & security > Searching Windows > Advanced indexing options > Pause. It restarts on its own after 24 hours.
• Index less: in the same place, remove folders you never search (a games drive, for instance), so there is less to keep up to date.

Details

Stutter Check counts the indexer as busy when SearchIndexer uses more than about 3 % of the CPU over a short sample. Idle or not running counts as fine. TrayTrigger never stops the Windows Search service.

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Part of Performance Tweaks. This page is the same text as the app's Learn more button, generated from Help/tweaks/stutter_search.md. To fix something, edit that file (or open an issue); wiki edits are overwritten on the next sync.