quick question. i have a lot of document and ebook files as well as music, on a new install. baloo file extractor and baloo are using a ton of memory. 8.2 gig.
I don't know if it will settle down after i let it run for a while, it is going to need to index about 200 gig of files.
Do you guys leave it enabled, disable it, or just exclude bulk file directories?
thanks.
You should exclude those folders. See e.g.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Baloo#Usage_and_configuration
Afterwards, it should work fine (at least for me and I think many others).
There are some posts every now and then reporting high CPU usage or too big indexing, but I think this should be special cases like yours, where some folders could be excluded.
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rock on, filo. I will do that, thanks much.
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Baloo can indeed be a b*tch to deal with. Extracting all those files because why not 
Excluding some of the bigger locations can help a lot!
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I disabled contents search.
I may as well turn it off personally, I typically use locate (and really appreciate the updatedb timer setup as default).
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I have some problems with Baloo. It is a hog! On large updates, it would stop other programs from booting up. I asked on here about that, check the Baloo page on the Arch Wiki. So I shut it down and now my box runs fast and smooth. I have just done a complete update of KDE and an update of QT 6 with no problems. After 24 years of using KDE, I still do not understand why Baloo is necessary.
Warning: Your mileage may vary.
gary
For many years it never gave me too many issues, but it did grow quite large. That is an easy fix if you keep an eye on the folders, just delete them.
However, just recently, my computer basically kept freezing for 5 minutes at a time, then freeing itself. I knew something was running in the background. Baloo was doing its thing at the same time snapper/rsync was having a go, cause the desktop to crap the shitter. That is when I did the... System Settings > File Search > disable File Search option, and deleted the files (it prompts you.) That fixed it for me. I don't really use that option anyway, just want to find my apps.
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Personally, I leave it enabled but I have it only index filenames instead of the full file content. In this mode it uses minimal system resources but still gives me fast searches.
Also, as more kde ecosystem applications start to depend on it, it becomes more difficult to disable
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Sorry, I have to
systemctl enable --now bare-necessities
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Nepomuk, Baloo and Cortana. I hate them all. Slows down systems for the little benefit they provide.
I don't notice the slowdown from Baloo, but I do notice the speedup and ease of using Krunner to quickly open stuff.
E2A: Oh, you're running an A10. I perceive the significance now.
Yes, because this is a workhorse machine. It still works as new with Linux. I don't wish to add to the e-waste people "conveniently" throws on dump sites.
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We could potentially "pre-tweak" baloo settings to be more light on ressources by default 
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I like the idea of adjusting the Baloo settings. I was not aware of how Baloo works. I run Barebones KDE but I do not use most KDE programs but I do work with some large data files. Last night, I installed Qt 6 Creator, almost a gig of code using the QT Maintenance Program. It is all running with no problems. I have to write a review of QT 6, so maybe this weekend.
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i actually let it run with content search off for about 10 hours and its settled down, but i noticed that it was using 5.8 gig of memory for baloo itself. I rebooted and its "calm" again. I'm going to see if i can tweak it so it doesn't steal half my system when it indexes.
I love the idea of pre-tweaking it.
It is the first thing I kill on Plasma. It is really not a good feature and not that easy to get rid of lol. If you have an ssd or nvme it's pointless anyway.
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You are correct, it is only nominally better than the dreaded Microsoft Cortana, but still steals system resources from foreground programs. Really silly for it to be enabled by default. Might as well release Garuda with Baloo disabled by default, with users choosing to enable it if they wish.
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Since you aren't indexing contents, why disable archive formats? It seems like you want to be able to search for those.
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I have been running KDE with no Baloo. KDE runs so fast now. I have not had any problems. In some special use cases, indexing the content of files might be useful but for me, indexing has not helped me.
gary
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