LOCALSEARCH-3(1)

💅 LOCALSEARCH-3(1) — the localsearch-3 man page, but make it make sense ✨

okay so bestie, you're looking at localsearch-3 from the LocalSearch manual, and no cap, this one is short but she's got lore. 🫶

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🌸 NAME 🌸

localsearch-3 — it's a filesystem indexer. that's the whole job. she indexes your files. iconic behavior, honestly. 👑

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

localsearch-3 [OPTION...]

that's it. that's the whole invocation. [OPTION...] and vibes. 🎀

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so here's the thing: localsearch-3 is not supposed to be run by the user</p>. like, it's not for you, it's for systemd, which starts it up when the user logs in. main character energy, but the main character is a login session. 😭

obviously though, you can start it manually if you're debugging — that's allowed, we're not the police. 🕵️‍♀️

You can not run more than one instance of this at the same time.</p> one at a time, bestie. that's the rule. no cloning yourself, no parallel universe arc. 💀

and what does she actually do? localsearch-3 mines information about applications and files only. that's it. that's the lane. she stays in it. 🎯

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💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -?, --help — shows you a little summary of the options. the "what does this thing even do" button. 🫶
• -V, --version — returns the version of this binary. so you know exactly which one you're dealing with. 💅
• -n, --no-daemon — tells the indexer to exit once all indexing has finished and the database is up to date. this is not the default mode of operation, jsyk — normally she just sticks around acting like a daemon, monitoring file updates that may occur over time. so this flag is like "girl, you can go home now." 🏠✨

also important: this option renders the --initial-sleep option moot. like, completely moot. moot-ified. 🙈

• -e, --eligible=FILE — checks if FILE is eligible for being mined, based on the current configuration rules. and not only that — it'll also check if FILE would be monitored for changes. 👀 this one's flexible too: it works with non-existing FILE arguments as well as existing FILE arguments. so yes, you can ask about a file that doesn't even exist yet. she'll still answer. queen. 🌈

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🚀 DESKTOP INTEGRATION 🚀

desktop environments that make use of localsearch-3 should start the localsearch-3.service user unit on startup. that's the move. ✨

for instance, sessions managed by gnome-session can add this service as a Wants= dependency in their gnome-session@name.target.d/session.conf drop-in. copy that path exactly, bestie, i'm not kidding about the path. 🎀

and here's the slay part: this allows sessions to disable background filesystem indexing just by simply not starting localsearch-3.service — perfect for situations where it's not necessary (i.e. special kiosk sessions). lowkey elegant. the way that you can opt out by doing nothing at all? chef's kiss. 👑🔥

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🔍 SEE ALSO 🔍

• localsearch-info(1). go read her too, she's the sibling. ily. 💜

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a cute little sign-off 🎀</p>

this page was brought to you by version 3.12.0, dated 09/15/2026, and by the letter 💅. now go index some files, bestie — or like, don't, because systemd will do it for you. periodt. 🌟