Pre-caching every item with every Property through indexing - a reasonable overkill?

General discussion related to "Everything".
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Thy Grand Voidinesss
Posts: 824
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:01 pm

Pre-caching every item with every Property through indexing - a reasonable overkill?

Post by Thy Grand Voidinesss »

I use quite a few Bookmarks that have their Search Field set to Custom like e.g.

audio-bits-per-sample:24 audio-sample-rate:96000


and similar

audio-sample-rate:44100


or for dealing with whole other task e.g.

video-track-count:<1


When chosen, such Bookmarks work very slowly, because Everything needs to check those specific Properties of all files, not just the multimedia ones. But this can me averted by going to

Tools > Options > Indexes > Properties

and adding [for those explanatory Bookmarks]

Audio Bits Per Sample
Audio Sample Rate

Video Track Count


with selected option Include Files and then specifying in the field of Include only files only file formats of interest. By default Everything puts in this field very limited numbers of formats - and thus I expanded them to include all the multimedia formats that I use daily


But that got me wondering: why limit such lists to just frequently used formats and not expand them to all multimedia formats that are known to me?

Or going one step further: why not simply leave that field empty? I assume this would cause all files to be checked - and thus I would not have to bother in the feature with adding to those lists new / more file formats. So far this overkill makes sense, as long as it is merely few of Properties that are being indexed; I reckon

But what about taking the ultimate step: why not just add every possible Property there is and for every possible file and folder? If I will limit myself at previous step, then in the future when I will add indexation of some Property for also all files, then Everything will have to go again through all of my files, right? So why not order Everything to go through entirety of them once and for all? Or would that result with my database to swell from ~1.25 GB to possibly tens of GBs and also require as much RAM to be handled later on? Is the time required to process so thoroughly every item also a profound factor to be considered - or is that happening so fast, that popping into existence of new items on my volumes will not cause Everything to choke itself and / or Windows?
ChrisGreaves
Posts: 821
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2022 9:29 pm

Re: Pre-caching every item with every Property through indexing - a reasonable overkill?

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Thy Grand Voidinesss wrote: Thu Aug 21, 2025 11:35 am... why limit such lists to just frequently used formats and not expand them to all multimedia formats that are known to me?...
Hi TGV.
I think that a similar train (of thought) was on my mind when I asked:-
(a) What drives, what files, what folders were considered for inclusion in the Index for SHA512? I have a boot drive C: and an encrypted data drive T:
(b) How/where do I control what files are included in the index. How do I prevent folders from being included?


Getting a souped-up RAM and SSD off the ground made me think "Why not make good use of this facility?".

I think that the answer was something like "The space is not an issue; but maintaining those indexes each time a single file changes will soak up of lots of processing/maintenance time".
Cheers, Chris
Thy Grand Voidinesss
Posts: 824
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:01 pm

Re: Pre-caching every item with every Property through indexing - a reasonable overkill?

Post by Thy Grand Voidinesss »

I have read thas topic, having almost zero knowledge about encrypting and hashing, but I did took spot this plain statement from by void:
should point out that indexing sha256 for files that change often is expensive to maintain.
I recommend indexing sha256 for files that are not going to change often.
So my question
Thy Grand Voidinesss wrote: Thu Aug 21, 2025 11:35 am [...]
why not just add every possible Property there is and for every possible file and folder?
[...]
still stands - but maybe with a caveat of exempting just that one Property of sha256?
Last edited by Thy Grand Voidinesss on Sun Dec 21, 2025 1:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ChrisGreaves
Posts: 821
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2022 9:29 pm

Re: Pre-caching every item with every Property through indexing - a reasonable overkill?

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Thy Grand Voidinesss wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 7:36 am
should point out that indexing sha256 for files that change often is expensive to maintain.
I recommend indexing sha256 for files that are not going to change often.
So my question ...still stands - but maybe with a caveat of exempting just that one Property of sha256?
I'm with you.
A thought flashes across my mind: if SHA encoding is time/processor expensive when applied every time that just one file changes, what woud happen if someone (like me) with large RAM and SSD had an option to re-index SHA properties in the background.

That is, we could have SHA indexes on the understanding that they not be correct until the re-indexing is complete?

As far as I know, Everything is an instant-gratification application; add a drive to be indexed and you wait for that indexing to be completed. An indexing process that is NOT running in real-time would fly against the philosophy of Everything.

Then too I can envisage options such as "rebuild the index in real-time if this check-box is set to ON" and similar.
Cheers, Chris
P.S. I suppose that now we are waiting fior me to experiment with setting a SHA properties index and seeing what that does to my coffee-habit! C
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