Case: Ubuntu 18.04 (KDE), Baloo search index reached max inotify watchers: search in Dolphin (Ctrl+F) doesn’t return search results for new files and so does KRunner (Alt+F2).
Solution
Checking the current number of inotify watchers:
cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches
To check Baloo service status:
balooctl status
Persistently set inotify watchers to a big number:
sudo su echo "fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 500000" >> /etc/sysctl.conf exit balooctl reload balooctl status
Upon entering that last command, the index size should’ve increased.
Complementary Notes:
Mounted drives (secondary HDD, for example) are excluded from the index by default. Can be managed form File Search – System Settings Module.
Indexing can be disabled from File Search – System Settings Module.