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Disable spotlight on certain files based on their extension
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AFAIK, that's still not possible. Apple likely would have mentioned it if they added the feature.
You can do a few tricks with folders that you may find useful as a workaround:
How can I make spotlight ignore certain file types and directories?
You can do a few tricks with folders that you may find useful as a workaround:
How can I make spotlight ignore certain file types and directories?
This is the best I came to find.
http://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-prevent-spotlight-from-indexing-files/
Basically they claim one can add a .noindex at the end of the filename, I presume before the extension, but I might be wrong as I have not tested this.
http://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-prevent-spotlight-from-indexing-files/
Basically they claim one can add a .noindex at the end of the filename, I presume before the extension, but I might be wrong as I have not tested this.
What purpose would this serve? As long as you don't put "dat" in the search box, nothing will show up in your results.
Part of the problem is that the Mac OS isn't very savvy to .dat files, and they can be of different types. You'll find that extension in Application Support for various applications, and in mail messages, etc. It would be tough to get Spotlight to ignore them since they probably get indexed as content type "public.data" so eliminating that, if you could, would probably exclude other useful files. Best to just construct a search so that they are excluded, or filtered/sorted to be out of the way.
That is an interesting comment indeed. I see the issue. However let me say that my question is more general, because sometimes mdworker start to index other big data files, that are not .dat, but contain some text based "big data" I work on. This can eat one cpu or more ...
So I am afraid I would still benefit a lot of a way to exclude certain file extensions from being indexed.
yes! but no ... 
files tend to be in certain folders, true, but every time you start a new project then you populate several new folders with such files ... and you have to add them all to the list of excluded folder. then you might as well install linux on your mac and, voila, your done
well, don't take me wrong, I see that you all are trying to help, but I think the only truth here is that spotlight is missing a feature.
files tend to be in certain folders, true, but every time you start a new project then you populate several new folders with such files ... and you have to add them all to the list of excluded folder. then you might as well install linux on your mac and, voila, your done
well, don't take me wrong, I see that you all are trying to help, but I think the only truth here is that spotlight is missing a feature.
Put all the new project folders within an enclosing folder, and always start new projects inside that folder.
Putting a folder on the exclusion list will exclude all the folders inside that folder.
It's a PITA workaround, but it is usually workable.
Putting a folder on the exclusion list will exclude all the folders inside that folder.
It's a PITA workaround, but it is usually workable.