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With Windows 11 we get lots of performance improvements and new features over its predecessors – but one well-worn whine from laptop owners hasn’t gone away: bad battery life. Common fixes that involve lowering screen brightness or eliminating unnecessary apps or that involve using a power-saving plan might not be the only solutions — there’s a lesser-known trick that could provide a noticeable improvement, and that’s to disable Windows Search Indexer.

This background service continually monitors your files, creating a huge index database that can include 30,000 entries for casual users and more than 400,000 for heavy users, according to Microsoft. As the size of the database increases, it can not only leech your battery, but also impact the speed.

The good news? You can disable this feature (temporarily or long-term) to gain extra battery life.

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How to Disable Windows Search Indexer in Windows 11

Follow these simple steps:

  • Press Windows keys to open the Start Menu.
  • Type services. msc and hit Enter.
  • Search for Windows Search in the Services window, then double-click to open its Properties.
  • Choose Disabled from the “Startup type” drop-down menu.
  • Press Stop and then close the window.
  • Restart your laptop.

This will stop the background operation of the Search Indexer. The trade-off? You might see slightly slower search results, but your battery life and performance may get a boost.

How to Check and Optimise the Search Index Database

If you’d rather tweak instead of disable indexing entirely, you can watch and maintenance the database instead:

  • Open Settings → Privacy & security → Searching Windows.
    • Check the Indexed items figure.
  • Navigate to:
    • C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows
  • Right-click Windows.db, select Properties, and note the file size.
  • To exclude unnecessary folders from indexing:
    • Go to Settings → Privacy & security → Searching Windows → Add an excluded folder.
  • To rebuild the database:
    • Searching Windows → Advanced indexing options → Advanced → Rebuild.

Rebuilding can take up to 24 hours, but it happens in the background.

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Pro Tip

If you don’t want to fully disable indexing, consider manually turning it off only when on the go (e.g., during travel or meetings) to extend battery life. When plugged in, you can switch it back on for faster searches.

The Bottom Line

Windows Search Indexer is useful, but it’s also a hidden battery drain on many laptops. By disabling or optimising it, you can squeeze extra hours out of your device — making this one of the easiest tweaks to improve Windows 11’s battery performance.

And while these steps also work on Windows 10, Microsoft is set to end support for it soon, making Windows 11 the more future-proof choice.