Windows bothersome indexing after running onedrive

Question

After installing onedrive, I found that windows was indexing my outlook folders. I can't see any need for that. It runs constantly and now I can't use outlook search. I have tried all the ways I know to unlink onedrive and remove my .pst files from the onedrive cloud but the indexing goes on ... and on ... and one. how can I get rid of that unwanted, unneeded and interferring indexing behavior with or without using onedrive?

Answer 1

Thanks for explaining the issue, constant indexing after adding OneDrive feels disruptive. Official guidance states Outlook search depends on Windows Search indexing, and placing PST or OST files inside OneDrive synced locations causes continuous indexing and broken search. Supported steps focus on moving Outlook data files to a local folder not synced by OneDrive, then confirming indexing scope.

Open Settings, search for Indexing Options, select Modify, and clear OneDrive locations from the list. Next, select Advanced and choose Rebuild to reset the index.