I use Alfred instead of spotlight but sometimes I accidentally press cmd + space( Spotlight Shortcut ) instead of double shift( Alfred Shortcut ). I want to disable Spotlight( shortcut + not run it in background as well ) so might not open it. Also, does Alfred use spotlight file indexing if yes then I might not want to disable that but if no I would like to disable that as well.
How to disable spotlight for Alfred
alfredindexingspotlight
Related Solutions
Short answer: yes.
Go to your System Preferences, then Spotlight:
You can disable and/or reorder the items in this list. By dragging Applications to the top, "Saf" will match Safari first (because it's an App, regardless of it's location).
If, on the other hand, there's a Folder(s) or Drive(s) that you want to explicitly exclude from Spotlight until you change your mind, turn onto the Privacy Tab (on top of that panel) and click the (+) button to browse for a folder.
This window also accepts Drag and Drop of Folders or Drives (Volumes). In my Sshot, you can see that I exclude Clone (my weekly clone drive) from Spotlight so when I search for something I don't come up with duplicated results (one from the main drive and one from the backup).
I also have added a Public Folder where a lot of ppl drops stuff and I don't care about it nor I want it in my search results.
If you want to restore it, you can always remove it from this list (and give spotlight time to re-index it).
You can't (as far as I know) exclude by File type.
Note: in order to drag a "drive" just go go the finder, click on your Mac OS Volume and then press ⌘↑ (the up arrow) to go back to the "root", you will see your volumes there (among other things). Drag it and drop it onto this Privacy tab and voilá.
To disable, open Terminal and run
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
This disables the Launch Daemon that starts and keeps it running. You can also run:
sudo mdutil -a -i off
but from looking online in a few places, this may give you an error like 'Spotlight server is disabled'
If you disable though, it will continue to use an old cache, or not work at all. Therefore, the launching applications as you mention will no longer work. It also may break other functions related to the OS, like the Mac App Store (to know whats installed, etc), and LaunchPad.
If you still need an application launcher, you can use applications like LaunchBar and Quicksilver.
After seeing your update (espc. on how to stop it indexing so much), there are two things to check:
- Are you running something like a virus scanner or other application constantly accessing files on your drive? This will force spotlight to keep indexing. A network share would also be a culprit.
- You can also filter what folders Spotlight should index, and by configuring this, can limit how much has to be indexed. Do do this, go to System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy.
Re-enabling would be running
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
or
sudo mdutil -a -i on
Best Answer
In the "System Preferences" app select "Spotlight" from the top row. Now, uncheck the box titled "Spotlight search keyboard shortcut:"
I set the Alfred keyboard shortcut to Command-Space, which works a bit like Alfred on stock Yosemite machines.
If you want to keep the ability to search Spotlight with a keyboard shortcut, you could also change the shortcut using the popup menu to the right of the checkbox.