Last Updated on December 26, 2022 by Mathew Diekhake

Indexing is the process of looking up the files, email content, and other content from your computer and cataloging their information, such as the words and metadata in them. Once the search index has been built, it looks up the terms you type into search to help bring up the results much quicker.

If your computer has already been used for a while and contains many documents, building the search index can take up to a couple of hours before it is complete. Thankfully, it’s a once off thing — indexing will continue to run in the background periodically, and you won’t even notice it.

Indexing the files found on your computer can not only help with bringing up the results quicker but also help broaden the scope of what it is capable of bringing up in the search results. For example, it is with the help of indexing that you can expect to find every song from a particular artist that you may have in your music library when you search for it.

Read more: Search indexing in Windows 10: FAQ

The following tutorial demonstrates how to add and remove file types for the search index when you’re using a version of the Windows 10 operating system.

How to Add/Remove File Types for Search Index in Windows 10

1. Open the Control Panel in icons view app.

2. From the list of All Control Panel Items, click on the Indexing Options icon.

3. Click on the Advanced button.

4. To Add File Type Extension to Search Index

a.  From the File Types tab, Checkmark the box next to the extension that you want to include in the search indexing that currently isn’t included in it.

a. Choose between Index Properties Only or Index Properties and File Contents for the indexing preferences to be associated with the file (you need to choose one or the other).

c. Click on the OK button to save the changes and close the Advanced Options dialog.

5. To Add New File Type Extension to List

a. Beneath where it says Add new extension to list:, type the file extension that you want to add, and then click on the Add button.

b. Click on the OK button to save the changes and close the Advanced Options dialog.

6. To Remove File Type Extension from Search Index

a. Uncheck the box next to the extension that you want to include in the search indexing that currently isn’t included in it.

b. Click on the OK button to save the changes and close the Advanced Options dialog.

You can now close the Control Panel window and continue using your computer.

That’s all.