Home / Windows 10

Indexing Your Computer

You tell the Windows Search service about locations that should be indexed by designating them as searched locations. After you've designated a folder as an indexed location, the Windows Search service is notified that it needs to update the related index whenever you modify the contents of the folder. You can manage the indexing of your computer's files and folders by adding or removing indexed locations, specifying file types to exclude, and rebuilding indexes as necessary.

It's important to point out that encrypted files aren't indexed by default. This is designed to ensure that protected information isn't accidentally made available or discoverable. Although a poor security practice, there is an advanced option for indexing encrypted files.

Customizing Indexed Locations

The Windows Search service indexes only a few locations by default. These locations are:

  • Offline files: All offline file folders are indexed for fast searching.
  • Start menu: All menu options are indexed for fast searching.
  • Users: All personal folders of all users of the computer are indexed for fast searching.
  • Windows: All system files are indexed for fast searching.
The quickest way to ensure that a folder is indexed is to add the folder to one of the folders in your personal profile, such as Documents or Pictures. Although application data folders are stored within user profiles, these folders are excluded from indexing by default. Because you don't want to index folders or files associated with application data, this is the desired setting in most instances.

The Indexing Options dialog box, provides an overview of indexing on your computer, which includes the total number of items indexed and the current indexing state. The currently indexed locations are listed under Included Locations.

You can add or remove indexed locations by completing the following steps:

  1. In the Search box on the taskbar, type Indexing Options, and then press Enter. Or while working with the Search Tools in File Explorer, select Advanced Options and then select Change Indexed Locations.
  2. Select a location and then click Modify. In the Indexed Locations dialog box, click Show All Locations to display hidden locations as well as standard locations.
  3. Use the options provided to select locations to index, or clear check boxes for locations you no longer want to index. Click OK to save your changes.

The locations you can index include offline file folders, hard disk drives, and devices with removable storage. If a node can be expanded, you'll see an open triangle to the left of the location name. Click this to expand the location. For example, you could expand Local Disk (C:) to select a folder on the C: drive.

Note: Some system folders are excluded from indexing and are displayed dimmed to prevent them from being selected. If you enable indexing of the entire system drive, these system folders are excluded automatically. Keep in mind, however, that you usually don't want to index an entire drive. Instead, expand the drive location and select individual folders for indexing.

Including or Excluding Files by Type

Windows Search service can be configured to index file and folder names, file and folder properties, and file and folder contents. Windows Search service determines which types of files and folders to index according to the file extension.

The Windows Search service uses the information that it knows about file types and file extensions to help it index files more efficiently. Each file extension has a file filter associated with it, and this filter determines exactly whether and how files with a particular extension are indexed. For files included in the index, there are two general settings:

  • Index Properties: Only Ensures that only the properties of the file are indexed.
  • Index Properties: And File Contents Ensures that the properties of the file are indexed and that the contents of the file can be indexed as well, if content indexing is enabled.

You can specify file types that the Windows Search service should include or exclude when indexing files by completing the following steps:

  1. In the Search box on the taskbar, type Indexing Options, and then press Enter. Or while working with the Search Tools in File Explorer, select Advanced Options and then select Change Indexed Locations.
  2. Click Advanced. On the Index Settings tab, select the Index Encrypted Files check box if you want the Windows Search service to index files that have been encrypted.
  3. If you want to improve indexing of non-English characters, select the Treat Similar Words With Diacritics As Different Words check box. A diacritic is a mark above or below a letter that indicates a change in the way it is pronounced or stressed.
    Note: Selecting or clearing the options in Step 2 or 3 will cause the Windows Search service to completely rebuild the indexes on your computer.
  4. On the File Types tab, each file extension and filter association is listed. If a file extension is selected, the Windows Search service includes files of this type when indexing. If a file extension is not selected, the Windows Search service excludes files of this type when indexing. Select or clear file extensions as appropriate.
    When you install new applications, those applications may register new filters with the Windows Search service and configure related file extensions to use these filters. If a filter isn't available and you want to add support for a particular file extension, type the file extension in the text box provided and then click Add.
  5. To change the way files with a particular extension are indexed, select the file extension and then click either Index Properties Only or Index Properties And File Contents. Only change the way indexing works when you are sure the indexing configuration you've chosen works. Although you can always stop indexing the contents of a particular file type, you'll rarely want to index the contents of a file type that isn't already being indexed.
  6. Click OK to save your settings.

Resolving Indexing Problems

The Windows Search service must be running for you to perform searches. The service must also be running to index files. If you suspect there's a problem with searching or indexing, you should check the status of the Windows Search service. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. In the Search box on the taskbar, type View Local Services, and then press Enter.
  2. In the Services window, ensure the status of the Windows Search service is listed as Started. If the service isn't running, right-click Windows Search and then click Start. If the service is running and you suspect there's a problem with indexing, right-click and select Restart.

Other problems you may experience with searching and indexing have to do with corrupt indexes, improper index settings, and the index location running out of space. An indicator of a corrupt index is when your searches do not return the expected results or new documents are not being indexed properly. An indicator of improper index settings is when your searches fail or the Windows Search service generates bad file errors in the event logs. An indicator of the index location running out of space is when indexing of new documents fails and there are out-of-disk-space reports in the event logs for the Windows Search service.

The Windows Search service does a good job of automatically correcting some problems with indexes. For other types of problems, you'll find error reports in the form of Windows events in the system event logs. You can correct most problems with searching and indexing by completing the following steps:

  1. In the Search box on the taskbar, type Indexing Options, and then press Enter. Or while working with the Search Tools in File Explorer, select Advanced Options and then select Change Indexed Locations.
  2. Click Advanced. If you suspect your computer's indexes are corrupt, click Rebuild. Windows 10 rebuilds the indexes on your computer by stopping the Windows Search service, clearing out indexes, and then starting the Windows Search service. Indexes also are rebuilt automatically whenever you restart your computer.
  3. By default, the Windows Search service creates indexes in the %ProgramData%\Microsoft folder. If the related drive is low on space or if you want to try to balance the workload by using other hard disk drives, you may want to change the index location. To do this, click Select New under Index Location. In the Browse For Folder dialog box, select the disk drive and folder in which the index should be stored, and then click OK. The next time you restart your computer or the Windows Search service, indexes will be created in the new location.
  4. Click OK. In the Indexing Options dialog box, you can track the status of reindexing files by watching the number of indexed items increase. The indexing status indicates whether indexing is complete or in progress.