Baloo

Baloo
is a file indexing and searching framework for
KDE
Plasma.
Installation
Install
the
baloo
package.
Usage and configuration
In order to search using Baloo on the Plasma desktop, start
KRunner
(default keyboard shortcut
Alt+F2
) and type in your query. Within
Dolphin
press
Ctrl+f
.
By default the Desktop Search KCM exposes only two options: A panel to blacklist folders and a way to disable it with one click. Alternatively you can edit your
~/.config/baloofilerc
file (
info
).
Additionally the
balooctl6
process can also be used to control Baloo, e.g. in order to stop/start Baloo use
balooctl6 suspend
or
balooctl6 resume
to resume.
Once you added additional folders to the blacklist or disabled Baloo entirely, a process named
baloo_file_cleaner
removes all unneeded index files automatically. These are stored under
~/.local/share/baloo/
.
Command-line usage
$ baloosearch6
query
Support for range queries:
$ baloosearch6 "width>=6000 width<7000"
Groups and OR/AND operators:
$ baloosearch6 "tag:coolpicture OR (width>=6000 width<7000)"
For a list of all supported filter properties available, see
info
.
Note that text search index breaks down all metadata (including filenames) into "words", and does all its searches over it from the beginning of the word only. What this means is that while
baloosearch "tutorial"
would match
my_great_tutorial.txt
,
baloosearch "utorial"
would not match it.
To see what "words" baloo stored in the index for a particular file do:
$ balooshow6 -x
filename
Indexing a removable or remote device
By default every removable and remote device is blacklisted. It is possible to remove devices from the blacklist in the KCM panel.
Disabling the indexer
To disable the Baloo file indexer:
$ balooctl6 suspend
$ balooctl6 disable
The indexer will be disabled on next login.
Alternatively, disable
Enable File Search
in
System settings
under
Search > File search
.
To permanently delete the index database, run:
$ balooctl6 purge
This will also resolve the following error message in file dialogs and other applications (
KDE bug 437176
):
kf.kio.core: "Could not enter folder tags:/."
Troubleshooting
Inotify folder watch limit error
If you get the following error:
KDE Baloo Filewatch service reached the inotify folder watch limit. File changes may be ignored.
Then you will need to increase the inotify folder watch limit:
# sysctl -w fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288
To make changes permanent, create a
sysctl
configuration file:
/etc/sysctl.d/40-max-user-watches.conf
fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288
Plasma Vault Files are indexed and available even when vault is closed
This is a major security
bug
not yet fixed. Any file inside vault is by default indexed and available through file manager search, Krunner and Kickoff.
One workaround is to
stop
folder(s) from being indexed by Baloo. The relevant options are available in
System Settings > Search > File Search > Folder specific configuration > Add folder configuration > Stop indexing a folder
. After adding the desired folder, the existing Baloo data  needs to be removed and freshly indexed again:
$ balooctl6 disable
$ balooctl6 purge
$ balooctl6 enable
$ balooctl6 check
Baloo keeps running and slowing down the system, even when given the command to stop
Sometimes the daemon might be indexing a large amount of files (e.g. when looking through all the dotfiles in your
/home
directory), leading to a big consumption of the machine's resources and, potentially, to an unresponsive system.
If
balooctl6 suspend
does not work, you can kill the process directly with
pkill(1)
[1]
:
$ pkill -9
baloo_process
Afterwards, you can
disable the indexer
.
Alternatively, since nowadays the daemon is run via systemd, if you wish to keep the indexer running but without saturating the I/O bandwidth, you can adjust the daemon's
user unit
to e.g. give it a higher memory limit, prevent it from using swap, etc.
[2]