How to maximize the effectiveness of X1 Search
Launching X1 Search and Outlook email client
For best performance and results, we recommend that you launch your Outlook email client first, wait for the email folders to update with new emails, then launch X1 Search and allow it to index. This is most important if you have Real Time Indexing (RTI) enabled for your Outlook Email data source.
Edit the various Outlook Email data sources (Email, Contacts, Calendar, Task) to remove any folders that you might not really need to search. If you do not have Outlook Tasks or other Outlook items to index, you might consider setting those areas to Never Repeat the index.
Directories Not to Index
You can see this by going to Main Menu > Data Sources > Under the Files data source, click on the Gear Icon (Edit Data Source) > This is in the directory tree window. Please make sure X1 Search is NOT indexing the following directories:
C:\ - There is no need to index everything in the C: drive. Be more selective. See Below.
C:\Program Files directory and any sub-directories within (This is where X1 and other 64 bit programs are installed and ran from).
C:\Program Files (x86) directory and any sub-directories within (This is where the 32 bit programs are installed and ran from).
C:\ProgramData (This is where other program data is store).
C:\Windows directory and any sub-directories within (This is where your operating system runs from).
C:\Users - For this directory make sure not to include this specific directory: C:\Users\"username"\AppData\Local\X1 Search (This is where the X1 Search index files and configuration files are stored, so you don't want X1 Search trying to index its own index files. Doing so causes strange behaviors with the X1 Search program including index corruption and crashes). Note: "username" would be your Windows username profile on that computer. Also for this C:\Users directory, be more selective on what you need X1 Search to index, such as C:\Users\"username"\Documents which is where you would store your documents.
C:\Users\Default - (Unless you have your own files stored in these directories, by default, there is nothing useful here to index).
C:\Users\TEMP - (This is where certain program temporary files are stored).
C:\Temp - (This is where other temporary files are stored).
For all other drives (secondary, internal, external, thumb, flash) you may have mounted, be more selective on what you need X1 Search to index.
Files Indexing Level
You can see this setting by going to Main Menu > Data Sources > Under the Files data source, click on the Gear Icon (Edit Data Source). In the Files Options window on the right side, after you select a directory to index, it should show your current indexing level.
The "Everything" setting performs full content indexing for all files X1 Search finds on the disk, oftentimes unnecessarily indexing files you'll likely never need to search (the internal content of an executable file or .dll, or a shortcut link file as an example).
We recommend switching to the next lower index level, the "glass 3/4 full" setting - File names and sizes, plus content for specified extensions (Specify below), which is the default setting. Going with the "glass 3/4 full setting" still gives you full content indexing for the files active in our Global Whitelist Settings (see button with that name) and gives you Metadata indexing (file name, size, etc.) of files on the disk that are not set for content indexing.
If you don't mind searching the file types that are unchecked in our specified files list, try the "Sandwich" setting which focuses "only" on the selected file types and provides full content indexing for those file types.
Both the "glass 3/4 full" setting and the "Sandwich" setting leaves X1 Search very flexible in regards to your search usage while requiring a smaller and potentially more manageable index on your disk.
Real Time Indexing (RTI)
Note: The following is just my opinion and I wanted to share what best works for me.
If you have Real Time Indexing (RTI) enabled for your Files data source and/or Outlook Email data sources, there is no need to have the Files and Outlook Email scanner run continuously throughout the day, for example Every 30 Minutes. I have RTI enabled and I have my scheduling for indexing set to 9:00 AM Daily for these 2 data sources. RTI updates the Files index as soon as a change is made to a current file. RTI updates the Outlook Email index automatically a few seconds after an email is received or sent. You can have X1 Search perform a scan at anytime by clicking on the Scan Now button, during a time you are not busy on the computer. I personally do this once a week.
Note: In order for the RTI feature to function properly, Outlook must be launched and running. As stated at the beginning of this document, we recommend that you launch your Outlook email client first, wait for the email folders to update with new emails, then launch X1 Search and allow it to index.
Note: If it has been over a week since you have launched X1 Search, we recommend performing a manual scan on your Files and Outlook Email data sources by clicking on the Scan Now button to allow the indexes to update.
-Luis Reyes, X1 Developer