Turn On Or Off Enhanced Mode For Search Indexer In Windows 10

The Start/taskbar search function in Windows 10 is pretty good. It allows us to search for apps, admin tools, files, and folders.

With default settings, the Start/taskbar search shows search results for files and folders located in the desktop and libraries (documents, pictures, music, and videos) only. This is because, by default, Windows 10 indexes files and folders in these locations only and it doesn’t index files and folders in other locations.

You can configure the search to index all the files and folders on your PC by opening Indexing options and adding new locations. The good thing is that you no longer need to manually add new locations to make the search index your entire PC as there is a new option to make Windows 10 index all locations on your PC.

Windows 10 build 18267 (19H1) and later builds offer an option called Enhanced mode which when turned on indexes your entire PC. Once the entire PC is indexed, you will be able to search your entire PC right from the Start/taskbar search. In other words, you will be able to find any file located anywhere on your PC using the Start/taskbar search.

Turn on or off Enhanced mode for Search Indexer

Here is how to turn on or off Enhanced mode for Search Indexer in Windows 10.

Step 1: Open the Settings app. Navigate to Cortana > Searching Windows page.

Step 2: In the Find My Files section, select Enhanced to turn on the enhanced mode for Search Indexer. Select the Classic option to turn off the Enhanced mode.

If you don’t want to see some files or folders in search results, you can exclude those folders. To exclude a folder, click on Add an excluded folder option present in the Excluded folders section, and then select a folder who’s content you don’t want to see in search results. The excluded folder will be not be indexed.

Once you turn on the Enhanced mode, Windows 10 begins the one-time indexing operation. Note that indexing all files and folders on your PC might take a while depending on the number of files on your PC. You will be able to search for all files and folders only after the indexing is completed.

Alternatively, open Indexing Options by typing the same in the Star/taskbar search, click Modify button, select all drives and then rebuild the search index to be able to search for all files on your PC.

How to make Windows 10 search through file contents guide might also interest you.