What is .Spotlight-V100 on Mac? Can you delete it?

Where it is

What it is

Spotlight keeps an index of the names and contents of your files so searches are instant. Each disk has its own index in a hidden folder called .Spotlight-V100 at the top level of the volume. On the startup disk it sits on the Data volume, and external drives get one too.

Search in Finder, Mail and many other apps depends on it. The folder is owned by the system and you cannot open it without administrator rights.

Its size follows the number of files and how much text they contain. It can swell after a large migration or when an index has become damaged, and a rebuild usually brings it back to normal.

How big it gets

Usually from a few hundred MB to a few GB, depending on how many files the disk holds.

How to shrink it the right way

1. Run the command below to check whether indexing is turned on for the startup disk. It only reads the status.
2. To rebuild the index, open System Settings, choose Spotlight, and click Search Privacy. Add the disk to the list, close the window, then open it again and remove the disk. macOS deletes the old index and builds a new one.
3. To stop an external drive being indexed at all, leave it in the Search Privacy list.
4. Wait for indexing to finish. Search results are incomplete until it does, and the Mac can be busier than usual.

mdutil -s /

What happens afterwards

After a rebuild, Spotlight indexes the disk again in the background, which can take from minutes to hours. The new index is often smaller than the one it replaced. Your files are not changed.

How Diskzy handles it

Diskzy's System Data view sizes macOS support files as their own named part, marked "Managed by macOS". Diskzy does not offer to delete the Spotlight index.

Related guides

• .DocumentRevisions-V100/.DocumentRevisions-V100
• /private/var/folders/private/var/folders
• Time Machine local snapshots(APFS snapshots, not a folder)