Indexes

[whitearrow]

If you delete all your index files, will they recreate themselves? How long might it take for files to start showing up?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

If you delete all your index files, will they recreate themselves? How long might it take for files to start showing up?

Yes. I don't know how long it takes... but it should start indexing right away.

BOb

[whitearrow]

Whew -- yeah, it's reindexing now. It just took awhile to get going, for some reason. Thanks for the reassurance

[mdibella]

What do the index files look like???

[mdibella]

(meaning, what are they called? How can you tell if they are there for each book?)

[sirbruce]

If you connect your Kindle via USB, you'll find the index files them in your system/Search Indexes folder. There's one for each book plus 2 other database files. But you can't tell the title. If you want to know if a book is indexed or not, just run a search from the home menu for a word and you'll get a list of books it appears in. You'll also get a listing of items not yet indexed.

In my experienced indexing takes anywhere from 15 seconds to 3 minutes per file; if you have a lot of books the time increases for the latter ones compared to the newer ones (probably because it has to search through a huge directory of all the previous indices). If you delete them they'll be regenerated the next time Kindle gets around to indexing that book.

I have had a few times where my Kindle 2 "forgets" it's indexing and claims none of the books are indexed. However, the files are still there on the Kindle, nothing is lost, and a quick reboot of the Kindle fixes the problem.

[whitearrow]

Bruce, I will definitely try the reboot next time rather than panicking and deleting all the indexes

[sirbruce]

Don't feel bad; I deleted all my indexes (indeces) once too.

[dwallbaum]

Are the indexes needed just for searching? Can the Kindle (K2 in my case) be configured to NOT index until 1: the book is read or 2: you actively force an index by starting a search?

Since I figure most books are just read and not searched, the cpu and battery is going a lot of work for no good purpose.

Now, clearly I have viewed an issue too simply.. .I would appreciate correction.

thx!

DonW

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by dwallbaum

Since I figure most books are just read and not searched, the cpu and battery is going a lot of work for no good purpose.

The idea behind indexes is that they are created when the Kindle isn't doing anything else so that searches can be fast when they are requested. The advantage of this approach is that the Kindle can search every book on the device at once. The downsides are that it takes up storage space and generating the indexes can sometimes interfere with reading.

Given that the Kindle uses indexes for search, what it is doing is the best approach. Remember, each index takes up to 3 minutes to generate - so waiting until an ebook is searched isn't an option. Reading devices that only search individual ebooks don't build indexes at all. They just search the plain text on demand. For occasional searches the plain text approach is probably best, but the Kindle has gone with the heavy duty searching approach (indexes). Usually this is transparent to the Kindle owner, and entire device (index-based) search is a unique feature of the Kindle that some will find very useful.

[NormHart]

Does indexing explain why sometimes my battery seems to last for days and sometimes drains rapidly? (wireless off in all cases)



( and why does ": b l i n k :" = ??? )

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by NormHart

Does indexing explain why sometimes my battery seems to last for days and sometimes drains rapidly?

It might, but only if the rapid draining is after you have loaded lots of new ebooks.