# How to exclude a folder from indexing?

**URL:** <https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-exclude-a-folder-from-indexing/35318>\
**Category:** ℹ️ Support\
**Tags:** fulltextsearch-app\
**Created:** [August 20, 2018, 9:38am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-exclude-a-folder-from-indexing/35318 "2018-08-20T09:38:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Sanook](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/sanook/32/13847_2.png) [@Sanook](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/Sanook)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 9:38am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-exclude-a-folder-from-indexing/35318/1 "2018-08-20T09:38:38Z")

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I have enabled “backup contacts daily” in the Nextcloud mobile app, this will create a hidden folder and upload the contacts vcf file every day there.

How can i exclude them from indexing?

Thank you!

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**Author:** ![Cult](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/cult/32/8547_2.png) [@Cult](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/Cult)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2018, 2:39pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-exclude-a-folder-from-indexing/35318/2 "2018-08-22T14:39:17Z")

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add a .noindex file in your folder

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**Author:** ![rawbertp](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/rawbertp/32/8845_2.png) [@rawbertp](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/rawbertp)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2019, 9:22am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-exclude-a-folder-from-indexing/35318/3 "2019-02-13T09:22:22Z")

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That doesn’t seem to work, at least not for external storage.

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**Author:** ![Cult](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/cult/32/8547_2.png) [@Cult](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/Cult)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2019, 10:46am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-exclude-a-folder-from-indexing/35318/4 "2019-02-13T10:46:29Z")

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The issue might be that if you edit a file in a folder that contains the .noindex, the file will be indexed. This will be fixed in next release of files\_fulltextsearch: [https://github.com/nextcloud/files\_fulltextsearch/pull/51](https://github.com/nextcloud/files_fulltextsearch/pull/51)

What will not be fixed, is that if user1 have:

```auto
- folder1/
  |- .noindex
  |- folder2/
  |- folder2/file.txt

```

and shares only `folder2/` to user2, `folder2/file.txt` will not be indexed for user1 but it will be for user2.

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**Author:** ![Rello](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/rello/32/166_2.png) [@Rello](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/Rello)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2019, 7:01pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-exclude-a-folder-from-indexing/35318/5 "2019-02-13T19:01:12Z")

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Hey,

its a known issue in NC.  
.\* files are not processed properly on external storage.

> <https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/9663>

I have the same issue with `.noaudio` files in the Audio Player

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**Author:** ![wwe](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/wwe/32/72963_2.png) [@wwe](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/wwe)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 7:33am UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-exclude-a-folder-from-indexing/35318/6 "2024-12-04T07:33:52Z")

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**Author:** ![wwe](https://help.nextcloud.com/user_avatar/help.nextcloud.com/wwe/32/72963_2.png) [@wwe](https://help.nextcloud.com/u/wwe)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2024, 3:10pm UTC](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-exclude-a-folder-from-indexing/35318/7 "2024-12-09T15:10:04Z")

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