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How to fix a VERY large Windows.edb file.

September 5, 2014 by Wayne Small 12 Comments

I noticed my disk space is getting pretty low on my laptop.  I used Treesize to determine that one of the biggest files was my Windows.edb file at 15.5GB in size.

image

This is linked to the Windows Search services, and it contains information designed to make my searching faster.

To reduce the size of this file, we can rebuild the index.

Go to Control Panel

Select Indexing Options

Select the Advanced button, then select the Rebuild button.

This will take a while now, but it will delete the windows.edb and associated files and commence reindexing your machine.

image

 

EDIT – February 2017 – Microsoft released a patch that stopped the windows.edb from growing to such large extents. They included that patch in an update rollup for Windws 8 and Windows Server 2012.  You can find out more here

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Windows 8, Windows 8.1

About The Author

Wayne has been working with Microsoft Server products in the SMB market for over 20 years. He has a passion for technology and been a Microsoft MVP for over 15 years. Read More…

Comments

  1. Ben says

    September 23, 2014 at 9:36 am

    Handy tip. Thank you. B.

    Reply
  2. Othman says

    March 9, 2015 at 9:28 pm

    Thanks but this is a workaround NOT A FIX

    Reply
  3. Mo says

    April 26, 2015 at 4:46 am

    This is ridiculous my windows.edb is currently 290 GB

    Reply
  4. Pachi says

    January 18, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    Trying to delete the ebd file without investigating the cause is a futile exercise. Indexing takes place based on the settings under Control Panel and find the Indexing section.
    Those with massive ebd files are most likely indexing some network share or file server (home or work). Deleting or simplt rebuilding the index will simply restart the process but the end will be exactly the same.
    Under Indexing look at what is listed and leave only your C drive, your profiles area and anything else you know you wish to be able to search for in the future. Using the Modify button deselect anything else and you’ll need to rebuild the index AFTER you edit the above.

    Reply
  5. Juan.Benito.Camelot says

    August 31, 2016 at 12:44 am

    AWSOME, !!! has 222 gb out of 222 gb. after the rebuilt it free up more than 78gb. AMAZING!!!! Thank you

    Reply
  6. gayan says

    September 6, 2016 at 3:55 pm

    thanks its very helpful its working for me

    Reply
  7. Linda says

    January 5, 2017 at 6:25 am

    Thanks, Pachi!!

    That is exactly what I was looking for. Not a bandage, but a cure.

    Reply
  8. Gerald says

    February 23, 2017 at 6:45 pm

    look at Microsoft patch KB2836988

    Reply
  9. Jonathan Medina says

    June 24, 2017 at 1:52 am

    I’m using Windows 8.1 and the patch dosen’t work… Have anyone else a cure?

    Reply
  10. Daniel says

    January 26, 2018 at 10:59 pm

    Hi guys,

    Windows.edb Filesize today (Worldrecord?): 1.382.078.016KB for ~10 million files. And it’s slow as f**k. After a rebuilt it was even bigger.

    Reply
  11. Thishakkya says

    March 6, 2018 at 6:42 am

    Thank you ! It works

    Reply
  12. kashif says

    December 13, 2018 at 3:02 pm

    Hi all
    Kindly any one suggest how do i reduce windows.ebd file

    Reply

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