Background

I have been using the Search functionality within the Dolphin file manager for KDE Plasma increasingly recently; however, the speed with which the results would show up left much to be desired. I went looking for faster options and chose Baloo indexing with KRunner, which runs a lot faster than Dolphin crawling through the directories on every search.

Setup

Step 1: Check the current state

balooctl6 status

If it says “not running” or “could not be opened,” proceed below.

Step 2: Reset the indexer

balooctl6 disable
rm -rf ~/.local/share/baloo
balooctl6 purge
balooctl6 enable

Then verify:

balooctl6 status

You should see “Baloo File Indexer is running”. I got the following output.

Baloo File Indexer is running  
Indexer state: Idle  
Total files indexed: 9,102  
Files waiting for content indexing: 0  
Files failed to index: 0  
Current size of index is 5.94 MiB

Step 3: Enable in System Settings

Once balooctl6 status shows it running, go to System Settings → Search → File Search and do the following.

  1. Check Enable File Search.
  2. Under “Data to index,” select Filenames.
  3. Make sure your home directory is in the indexed folders list

Components

Here is a tabulation of the division of labor.

Component Role Manifestation
Baloo Background daemon that scans your disk and builds a searchable index of file/folder names (and optionally contents) The database
KRunner The popup bar you invoke with a hotkey; you type a query, it asks Baloo, shows results The search box
Dolphin The full file manager GUI; opens when you click a result to actually browse/navigate The file manager

Result

The searches are so much quicker now. Previously, I needed to open Dolphin and go to the search button, and after entering the query, I would have to wait for the crawling across directories to proceed. Now, there is a persistent SQLite database (that gets updated automatically as I add new files, change the folder structure, etc.) that is swiftly queried with the help of the shortcut Alt + Space.

The search outputs results from Applications, Folders, as well as Browsing History. This is beyond what I was going for, but is much welcome. Only if nothing appropriate is found does a suggestion for running a web search appear (unlike a certain annoying spyware OS, which searches poorly within, and is always eager to use Edge.)