Reindexing of External Samsung SSD's

There are two possibilities that I can think of at the moment.

First, there are hidden database files that Spotlight places on the drive containing various indexing data. It is possible that this has some flaw in it that causes the indexing process to hang or simply bail out.

The other is that there is a file or folder that contains something that is throwing Spotlight off. This could take a very long time to figure out and a macOS update could come along and fix it anyway.

If the first case is the issue, then you can try the following:

Copy and paste this command into terminal and press return

 sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/T7\ SSD\ 2T

This will be followed by a request for your password. This is the password you use to log into your Mac. This should remove all its hidden database files and start rewriting them.

I am hoping this is the issue as the second case can be very laborious to determine or the next macOS update will fix it.

Have you tried putting that drive on the Privacy list in Spotlight settings, reboot, and then remove the drive from the Privacy list?

To verify that indexing is in fact on, in terminal execute the following command:

mdutil -s <path to the drive>

You can simply type the first part followed by a space and then just drag the icon of the problem drive/volume to the window.

If it does indicate that it is off then:

mdutil -i on <path to the drive>

Then repeat the first command to in sure it is on.

Now, you will need to wait awhile for indexing to complete. How long this will take depends on how much data is on the drive.

Let's just start with that for now.

BTW, how is the drive formatted?

If you don't feel comfortable using Terminal commands here's an easy way to reindex an external drive using Time Machine:

Method 1: Using System Settings (The Easy Way)

• Click the Apple menu () in the top-left corner of your screen.

• Select System Settings (or System Preferences on older macOS versions).

• Click Spotlight (or Siri & Spotlight) in the sidebar.

• Scroll down and click Search Privacy (or Spotlight Privacy).

• Drag your external drive's icon from your desktop or Finder window and drop it into the privacy list, or click the plus (+) button and select the drive.

• Click Done.

• Select the external drive you just added in that same privacy list, then click the minus (–) button to remove it.

• Click Done and close System Settings.

Currently you do have Spotlight Indexing enabled on that external Samsung T7 SSD according to the second screenshot of your latest post.

As for why the first command still had a problem....

You removed the spaces after each backslash character "\" in the volume name. Notice the difference between the first screenshot and the second one in your most recent post. As @woodmeister50 mentioned in their first post with the instructions, it is best to drag & drop the volume from the Finder onto the open Terminal window so that the system populates the correct path to the drive volume you wish to fix (since file/folder/volume names with spaces are complicated when using the command line).

So begin by typing the following....making sure to leave at least one space after the " -s ":

mdutil  -s  

Then use the Finder to drag & drop the volume onto the open Terminal window. If the name of your external volume is "T7 SSD 2TB", then the command line will show the following (may or may not include a trailing slash "/"):

mdutil  -s  /Volumes/T7\ SSD\ 2TB

Same applies to the second 'mdutil' command.

Addendum:

I think it's even easier in going thru the Time Machine menu in the Menu Bar.

• Select "Open Time Machine Settings" from the menu
• Click on the Options… button.
• In the next window click on the + sign and add the external drive you want reindexed. You can do multiple drives at the same time.
• Close System Settings.
• Open Time Machine Settings again, click on Options… button.
• Select the drive(s) you added earlier and click on the - button.
• Depending on how many files you have on the drive it may take some time to reindex.

One additional, have you tried Disk First Aid in Disk Utility on the drive and its volumes?

There could be some directory or file issue that may be causing Spotlight indexing to stall. That is something I have seen in the past.

You have an error in your command entries by not having a space between the drive path and the command options:

you have: mdutil -s/Volumes/T7\ SSD\ 2TB

should be: mdutil -s /Volumes/T7\ SSD\ 2TB

^space needed

same with:

you have: mdutil -i on/Volumes/T7\ SSD\ 2TB

should be: mdutil -i on /Volumes/T7\ SSD\ 2TB

^space needed

I can understand Apple's broad "no command line policy" as there are some system related commands if not entered properly can create disasters. Even with higher level techs, they don't want a typo over the phone or even screen share remotely to cause a customer system crash.

As for these commands, as you see, an error will simply spit out a "sorry no can do".

Varoop13 wrote:

...

What’s odd is that the 2 folders I mentioned yesterday “Action Fx…” from the“Movies” folder and “Simba” from the “Pictures” folder show similar data as yours in the “More Info” category when those folders are on the main SSD window, but nothing when in their original folders.  Any explanation?

As I had brought up previously, the Finder uses the Spotlight data base to load the additional data. So, that is why you see the data on one drive and not the other. The internal has fully indexed but the external hasn't. Each drive will have its own Spotlight database.

Both the NEF, and JPEG files in the Green “Nikon folder (shown in yesterday’s attached screen shot) had similar information as yours. There were no TIFF files to check  in this folder. 

That seems to indicate that the drive is getting partially indexed. Spotlight uses different processes to collect different types of data. Some things get indexed (or not) based on the different processes and the are not necessarily in synch, i.e some can speed through files while others take time.

Guess nobody has any thoughts on the erase this drive and restore it from Time Machine back up idea I posted yesterday. Thanks, Charlie

At this point, I would make a guess that what may be causing the issue might have been backed up.

Now, based on your recent info, the file or folder hypothesis may be the culprit since it appears that the drive is getting partially indexed. I have seen this rarely happen over the years and seems that Spotlight rather than skip over a problem, it throws its hands up in the air and gives up. There may or may not be a very good reason for this behavior but certainly don't know it.

Now, as an aside, there are lots of media management tools available, free and paid that provide some powerful searching capabilities. I believe you mentioned having ON1 previously. If you are referring to the PhotoRAW product, it has a powerful search tool that loads any EXIF data that contains "tags" and scans images themselves for objects. However these are generic (church instead of St. John's Church as an example) unless you have specifically added your own tags.

As for free media tools, DigiKam Photo Manager and XnView MP are a couple I have used in the past. I have tried both but my personal preference was DigiKam Photo Manager.

Usually for external drives.....especially if multiple devices and macOS user accounts will be accessing that data.....you want to check the "Ignore Ownership" option in the "Get Info" properties window for that volume. Select the external volume in the Finder, then press Command + I (that is an uppercase "eye"), or select "File --> Get Info".

If you don’t have permission to use files on a Mac disk - Apple Support

This time you omitted the letter "m" from "mdutil".

The command line is very unforgiving. ;-)

Hi Woodmeister50, It appears that I have a “what’s behind door #2” issue. Do not wish to attempt to search for a “needle in a haystack”.

I answered my own question on how to see if indexing is finished or in progress by using the “s” command per a Google search earlier. The answer: “If indexing is still happening, Terminal will return a message stating "Indexing in progress." Once finished, it will change to "Indexing enabled."  I checked Terminal “s” last night after using the “E”command.in the afternoon and still got the “Indexing enabled” comment. Searches on the SSD still didn’t provide locations of files or folders. Tried the process again this am with the same result.

I had another idea that may cure the problem. This SSD drive is backed up on my Apple Time Machine drive. I did some research and erasing the SSD and reformatting to clean the drive is an option. I could restore the Time Machine back up to the SSD. The big question is would the back up contain the same problem file(s) or folder(s)? Don’t want to go through the time and trouble if the back up would be the same as the original. Any thoughts from you or anyone else? Any input would be greatly appreciated in this reindexing nightmare!

Thanks, Charlie

Based on the total number of items you have shown, indexing should take some time, at least a few minutes but likely a bit longer, especially if there are basically text files involved like sidecar files that are sometimes added by photo software so you have non-destructive edits.

One thing to take a look, randomly select a photo in each of the different formats that the images are in (NEF for Nikon, JPEG, and TIFF) and do a Get Info on it in one of the top level folders (or in a subfolder if that is where actual images are kept. Does it display any exif data in the "More info" section?

Example, for my NEF files I get something like this:

If you don't get such information it indicates that the file was not indexed.

You can try this in each of the other folders as well. You don't need to do it for every file (obviously) but just a random sampling in each to see if anything has been indexed.

This could give an indication if at least a partial indexing was done.

If it quickly came back with an Indexing enabled instead of Indexing in progress and if you have a lot of files on that drive, it would indicate something is failing early in the process.

I had a somewhat similar issue that was being caused by something in my home folder. My case though was that Spotlight was going ballistic and after a fair amount of work I was able to narrow it down to a folder. However, when I got to that point, a macOS update came along and the issue was magically resolved. So, I never found out if it was a particular file or not.

Post a screenshot of a Get Info for that drive, perhaps there may be something obvious that will pop out.

Hi Woodmeister50, Thank you for the Terminal Command corrections.

Per Apple’s suggestion, I contacted the company and uninstalled the software and dongle for my iMac as a second monitor. I also did a restart before attempting the reindex following the Apple instructions. As before, looking at Spotlight the reindex process had supposedly started per the blue progress bar. I opened Terminal and entered your “mdutil -s /Volumes/T7\SSD\2TB” command. Below is a screenshot of the Terminal result: invalid path.

I next used the Terminal start indexing command you gave me, “mdutil -i on /Volumes/T7\ SSD\ 2TB”.  Below is a screenshot of the Terminal result showing Indexing enabled. I went back to the first Terminal command to see if it was working. It was the same result as the original screenshot above.

If you have any further ideas, I’m open to hear them. Sorry to keep contacting you, but I’m at a loss. I feel that indexing the external SSD’s is becoming a time consuming lost cause. Depending on your reply, my only other option is to call Apple Support and to forward information to Apple engineering as the Senior Adviser suggested. He didn’t seem too confident of this route based on some of his previous experiences.

I do appreciate all your time and effort trying to resolve my reindexing problem. Thanks, Charlie

Thanks for the reply HW Tech. I looked and the "Ignore Ownership" box was already checked for the drive.

If you or anyone else has any other suggestions, I'd really like to be able to search for files on this and other external SSD's.

Thanks for the reply Woodmeister50. FYI, the drive is formatted APFS.

Per the Apple Support Instructions, I did use the Privacy List Add and Remove in Spotlight settings. I checked with Spotlight after going thru the reindexing process. It did  show the indexing had begun. See screen shot below.

I did mention to the Apple phone adviser how a Google search suggested using a Terminal command to check if the indexing was working. He advised against using terminal. Since his only advice was   to  reinstall the OS, which I had just done, I will follow your suggestion  with a copy and past of your command adding the drive by dragging the icon into Terminal. If that fails, I will follow your next Terminal step.

I appreciate your help and hope I can finally search for files on my  2TB Photo SSD! I will keep you posted. Thanks, Charlie

[Edited by Moderator]

Hi Woodmeister50, Apologize for the delayed reply. Other things in my life were taking priority.

I did run Disk Utility on the drive with an operation successful response and no fixes needed. I then tried both your Terminal commands. See screen shots of both below.

Both indicate removing .plist files. I did not feel comfortable doing that. I do not know where they live on my Mac Mini. I didn’t want to delete something else accidentally and cause more problems on my computer if I were able to locate them. I had removed .plists in the past with an Apple phone adviser’s help.  

I spoke to a Senior Apple adviser this afternoon. He told me that they no longer do Terminal commands or instructions by phone with a screen share. I was told he would have to forward information to engineering in an apparent new policy. This would take time and he mentioned their solution could be updating the software to Mac OS 27. I do not like updating new OS software on the first release. Do not want to do beta testing.

He did have 2 suggestions to try first. I have another external SSD drive. He said to try reindexing that drive to see if I have the same problem. I did. Like my other drive the results of Disk Utility and both of your Terminal commands were exactly the same.

The other suggestion involved an app with a dongle that allows me to use my old iMac as a second monitor. He said uninstalling the app could help eliminate the issue. I would contact the company to see how to uninstall  first and reinstall after the indexing if it works. I’d like to hear your take if this could work.

You have given me more information and help than Apple support. I would appreciate any further suggestions you may have, Thanks for all your input! Correcting this has taken a lot of time. I don’t understand why it should be this difficult when external drives have become so common.

Thanks, Charlie

Hi HWTech, Thank you for your reply. I do not use Terminal unless someone gives me the commands. I am not proficient with this app.

The first time I did the terminal command, I did drag and drop the  T7 SSD 2TB icon from the desktop. I did not know about the spacing for the letter before adding the volume. I also did a copy and paste of woodmeister50’s correction commands first.

This time, per your input, I typed the commands and left a space after each letter designation before dragging the volume from the desktop. Below is a screenshot of the Terminal with both commands. As previously noted in a past attempt, Terminal is asking to “dump the VolumeConfiguration.plist” and remove the “Spotlight index directory”. I do not feel comfortable doing that. I do not know where they live on my Mac Mini. I don’t want to delete something else accidentally and cause more problems on my computer if I were able to locate them.

Do you have any other suggestions on how to reindex my SSD’s so I can search their contents? I still don’t understand why it should be this difficult when external drives have become so common. Searching is the easiest way to find a file or folder when there are many on a drive.

Thanks, Charlie

Hi Woodmeister50, Thank you for the new Terminal “E” Command. Below is a screenshot of Terminal. Thinking this was successful by the “Indexing enabled” comment.

As per your first reply on 9/19, I ran the Terminal “s” Command afterwards  Below is a screenshot of Terminal. This is the first time I’ve seen the “Indexing enabled” comment. All previous attempts have said “invalid path”or “invalid option”. Hoping this means it is reindexing the drive as mentioned in your 9/19 reply. You said it could take awhile for indexing to complete. Is there any way to check that the indexing is finished other than a file search on the drive?

I can’t thank you enough for your efforts helping me try to resolve my reindexing problem. I’m hoping my next comment will be mission accomplished! Will keep you posted. Charlie

Hi Woodmeister50, Below is a screen shot of the Get Info for the drive.

In addition below is a screenshot of the drive icon opened on the desktop showing the folders. In the folders that are labeled green, I was able to search and find files from them. The ones in Red searches were unsuccessful. 

What I found interesting was the green folder at the top “Action Fx…” was originally in the red “Movies” folder where the files could not be found, but were located when the folder was outside the master “Movies” folder. This is the same for the green folder at the bottom “Simba” which came from the red master “Pictures” folder. Figuring the problem lies within one or both these red folders. FYI, per Get Info, the full “Movies” folder contains 249 items using 102.6 GB, and the “Pictures” folder contains 19,056 items using 397.64 GB. The “Different…” contains 1,463 items using 9.78 GB, and the “Nikon” contains 2,843 items using 62.93 GB. Number of items and size do not seem to be a factor other than the “Pictures” folder which is the largest in both categories. The plot thickens! Any ideas?

Are there any thoughts from you or anyone else on the erase drive restore Time Machine back up idea I posted yesterday? Thanks, Charlie

Hi Woodmeister50,  Thanks for the screen shot  of the “Get Info” on a NEF file in your library. I checked several photos (NEF, TIFF, and JPEG files) in the red “Picture” folder shown in yesterday’s attached screen shot and none of the photos had anything in the “More Info” category. The same result of no data in the “More Info” on several of the mov files in the red ”Movies” folder. As suspected, it appears limited or no indexing was done in either of those folders. 

What’s odd is that the 2 folders I mentioned yesterday “Action Fx…” from the“Movies” folder and “Simba” from the “Pictures” folder show similar data as yours in the “More Info” category when those folders are on the main SSD window, but nothing when in their original folders.  Any explanation?

Both the NEF, and JPEG files in the Green “Nikon folder (shown in yesterday’s attached screen shot) had similar information as yours. There were no TIFF files to check  in this folder. 

Guess nobody has any thoughts on the erase this drive and restore it from Time Machine back up idea I posted yesterday. Thanks, Charlie

I just noticed when posting my above comment that my post with screen shots from yesterday 9/27 was no longer visible. If removed by the Moderator, could I please know why?

Maybe I’m missing some setting, but it would also seem logical and helpful to have all replies listed in chronological order regardless who posted. Please advise.

Hi Woodmeister50, Thanks for your input and the 3rd party Media Management Tool suggestions.

I received a notice today for a Tahoe 26.7.1 software update. I haven’t installed it yet. When I do I will try to reindex and see if the update corrects the problem. I will keep you posted. Charlie

Hi Woodmeister50, I know I’ve said it repeatedly, but your helpful suggestions have given me direction to attempt to solve this frustrating indexing issue.  

FYI, the Tahoe 26.7.1 software update did not correct the problem. I got all the same results as before. I moved a few files and folders from the primary problematic”Movies” and “Pictures” folders onto the main SSD icon window. All were found. When all were returned to their respective folders, the search produced nothing. 

I will explore 3rd party Media Management Tool suggestions you posted as an alternative. Apple Spotlight isn’t working on either of my external SSD’s, and I’m done expending time and energy finding out why. You would think that a crucial issue such as searching for files and folders on hard drives would be on the top of the list when creating an operating system. I would be curious to see if anyone else has encountered this issue. Please post if you have. It may prompt Apple to find a solution. 

Thank You, Charlie

I was afraid that may happen.

Varoop13 wrote:

it would also seem logical and helpful to have all replies listed in chronological order regardless who posted. Please advise.

You can set that in your profile preferences:

Thank you! That worked!