CloneEject 1.0

CloneEject is a useful Applescript drag and drop application that will install the .metadata_never_index file on the drive.

If you have Spotlight running, it will begin indexing the removable drive when you mount it, which in turn will make your cloning process take nearly twice as long.

You’d like to disable Spotlight indexing on the removable (or any other) drive.

Of course the problem is infinite, since if Spotlight is indexing the source drive, then when the clone is complete, it will have indexing enabled on the destination too.

Well, there’s always the privacy option in system preferences, but if you’re like me, it’s pretty much hit or miss, and I generally have to redo it each time. (Not sure what the logic is with it, but it certainly doesn’t remember the privacy state of removable drives.)

And there’s Spotless. Nice product, which I use myself. But with removables, Spotless has no effect unless it is running at the same time as you mount the drive.

Finally, there’s the hidden file .metadata_never_index which works to prevent a drive from being indexed, but most folks have a hard time creating it... and the cloning issue mention above still applies - if Spotlight is indexing the source drive, then when the clone is complete, it will have indexing enabled on the destination too. And once you’ve set it up, it will only require a single drag and drop after the clone will be finished copying.