How to control indexing in Curiosity

When you first install Curiosity and connect sources, the app does two things:

It temporarily downloads your data from cloud sources (e.g. Gmail)
It indexes your data to make it searchable

Indexing needs a lot of CPU (computing power), so you might experience your computer slowing down or hear the fan start. You might recognize this from indexing by your operating system (Windows Search or Spotlight). CPU usage during indexing varies depending how much data you have.

After the first indexing run, CPU usage should drop to basically zero.

How long does indexing take?

Indexing can take between a few minutes and a few hours to complete: It depends on how much data you have and how powerful your computer is.

How can I control indexing?

There are two ways of controlling how Curiosity indexes your data to make sure it doesn't interfere with your work:

You can pause indexing when on battery, and
You can schedule when indexing happens

How to pause or schedule indexing?

To schedule indexing for a time when it won't disturb you:

In the left bar, click the cog (⚙️) icon to open Preferences
Go to the section File Scheduling
Click and drag on the green tiles 🟩 to turn off indexing for times/days

⬜️ The app won't index during these times
🟩 The app will index during these times

Select what you want to happen with scheduling on battery under Paused

You can change Balanced and Performance sliders to indicate how many files you wish to index at the same time (up to 8 files simultaneously)
🟩 Balanced
🏳️‍🌈 Performance

For instance, you can set the app to index:

Only during the weekends

Indexing of files happens only during the weekends

During the weekends and at night

The app will index up to 6 files at the same time at night, and 1 file during the weekends

All day

The app indexes new files as they are created, prioritizing fast indexing at night

🪪 The free version of the app indexes fast. Paid versions (including Trials) can take longer because they also index file contents.

⚠️ Troubleshooting: if you're not seeing a search result you'd expect on the app, check the following steps on this page to recreate search indexes and this page to see other possible explanations.

Updated on: 08/07/2024

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