Windows 10 indexing and searching in files

So i know a little bit about the windows indexing and how you can select it to search files and inside files in the advanced tab and file types. I currently have text files selected to files AND file contents but is this system wide or is it in indexed locations only? I've seen some sites suggest if you wish to use other locations use folder options and under search check "always search file names and content (this ma take several minutes)" but does this affect every folder or only the folder your currently in? Do you have to do it for every folder you wish to have it enabled for?

And lastly with indexing does it take up any space on your PC? If so how much?

MajorFoley said:

So i know a little bit about the windows indexing and how you can select it to search files and inside files in the advanced tab and file types. I currently have text files selected to files AND file contents but is this system wide or is it in indexed locations only? I've seen some sites suggest if you wish to use other locations use folder options and under search check "always search file names and content (this ma take several minutes)" but does this affect every folder or only the folder your currently in? Do you have to do it for every folder you wish to have it enabled for?

And lastly with indexing does it take up any space on your PC? If so how much?

Hello MajorFoley

A few answers for you:
Only indexed locations get indexed. The indexing database does take up space, but I couldn't tell you how much as it depends on your configuration and number of files.

To see how much space is currently being used by indexing run the following in an admin powershell (assuming you didn't change the default location of indexing database):

Code:

"{0:N2} GB" -f ((Get-ChildItem C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\ -Recurse | Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum -ErrorAction Stop).Sum / 1GB)

Mine is about 2 GB.

If I need to search for something in a location that's not indexed and I don't want to add it to the indexed locations, I like to use third party app Agent Ransack - give it a try vs searching an non-indexed folder using File Explorer - it's much faster.