"To do this, launch your Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities/) and type the following:

sudo pico /etc/hostconfig

This will open up your hostconfig file, which tells OS X what processes to launch at startup. Scroll down the hostconfig file and find the line that reads SPOTLIGHT=-YES- and change it to SPOTLIGHT=-NO-. Close and save the file."

Really?? When I do that I get:

GNU nano 1.2.4 File: /etc/hostconfig

##
# /etc/hostconfig
##
# This file is maintained by the system control panels
##

# Network configuration
HOSTNAME=-AUTOMATIC-
ROUTER=-AUTOMATIC-

# Services
AFPSERVER=-NO-
AUTHSERVER=-NO-
AUTOMOUNT=-YES-
CUPS=-YES-
IPFORWARDING=-NO-
IPV6=-YES-
MAILSERVER=-AUTOMATIC-
NETINFOSERVER=-AUTOMATIC-
[ Read 29 lines ]
^G Get Help ^O WriteOut ^R Read File ^Y Prev Page ^K Cut Text ^C Cur Pos
^X Exit ^J Justify ^W Where Is ^V Next Page ^U UnCut Txt ^T To Spell


Can't say as I see SPOTLIGHT anywhere. This suggestion does not work.

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Uh...scuse my innocence as a NONCOMMANDLINE GURU...I'm a MAC USER you see....

So where do you get that Spotlight is supposed to show up in the terminal, I typed in
vi /etc/hostconfig
as well and guess what, I don't see anything but a bunch of mumbojumbo almost the same as the previous comment, and no spotlight anywhere.

I'm just a simple mac user who uses google to discover how to undo any stupid things Apple does...like SPOTLIGHT. And one who's always said "if I have to use a dos-like terminal thingy to work in my computer it's not worth doing"...well you guys are proving me right here, if yer gonna give instructions about command-line crap then PLEASE give a blow by blow and don't just expect that anyone is gonna know what the heck you programmers are talking about.

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OR if you simply don't like pico...

vi /etc/hostconfig, x, x, x, i, N, O, esc, :, w, q, enter

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And remember, its no longer UW's pico, but the GNU's nano. I'm happy, as I always had to catch myself from trying to use nano on 10.3 machines.

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You probably want to free up the space used by the index, too, so:

mdutil -i off /
mdutil -E /

Too, if you don't feel like rebooting, just kill any running mds and mdimport processes.

Also, when editing system files, I would strongly recommend using an editor that doesn't do in-place editing like pico and nano, but instead makes a copy and works from the copy, like vi or emacs. In the event of a program crash, nano/pico will attempt to save your current work in a file with the .save extension, and will in theory leave your original file untouched. But when dealing with system files Id still rather know I my program was working with it's own copy of the file, as well as its own buffer.

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Re: above comment - Have you even tried it? That info is pretty straightforward, and the terminal is far from DOS

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For the two guys/gals that had trouble not finding it, you need to use the down arrow to see the rest of the list, its second from the end on my system.

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Worked for me! My Powerbook 1.67 is MUCH snappier now! BUT, the basic command+F Find command yields no results now, for any search...is this a byproduct of turning Spotlight off?

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THANKS!!!! Worked like a charm ! I followed Tom Mango's directions and it was easy, easy easy to be rid of this crappy feature.

I too was noticing a lot of slow downs AND I had times when anywhere I clicked on the screen it opened up the Spotlight window.

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you know I don't see spotlight in my hostconfig list. I am scrolling down using the down arrow. the last thing in my list is VPNSERVER=-NO-
and before that on the list is CORDUMPS=-NO-
There are only 3 items that say YES, none of them being SPOTLIGHT, the rest say AUTOMATIC, or NO.
I'm using GNU 1.2.4.

Comments Please.

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Mac OS X more icon bubleling icon, i like that

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If this is really so easy, couldn't somebody who knows what it's all about write a little application to switch the monster on and off at will?

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You can drag your hard disk or home folder into the Privacy window in Spotlight preferences to achieve a similar effect.

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for those who don't want to use vi or pico, if you have TextWrangler or BBEdit (and you installed the command line tools) you can use those as well.

In a Terminal window:
bbedit /etc/hostconfig
edit /etc/hostconfig

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Even easier than using CLI editors…



From Terminal, this perl one-liner is all which is needed (will make a “.orig” backup file of the original):



sudo perl -pi'.orig' -e 's/SPOTLIGHT=-YES-/SPOTLIGHT=-NO-/' /etc/hostconfig

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