Gnome Tracker is a powerful search engine and metadata storage system used in the GNOME desktop environment. It indexes files and directories to provide fast search capabilities. However, some users may find it unnecessary or resource-intensive, especially on systems with limited resources. Disabling Gnome Tracker can free up system resources and improve performance. This article will guide you through the steps to completely disable Gnome Tracker on a Linux system.

Examples:

1. Stop Tracker Services: First, you need to stop the Tracker services that are currently running. Open a terminal and execute the following commands:

   systemctl --user stop tracker-store
   systemctl --user stop tracker-miner-fs

2. Disable Tracker Services: To prevent Tracker services from starting automatically, disable them using the following commands:

   systemctl --user disable tracker-store
   systemctl --user disable tracker-miner-fs

3. Mask Tracker Services: Masking the services ensures that they cannot be started manually or automatically. Execute the following commands:

   systemctl --user mask tracker-store
   systemctl --user mask tracker-miner-fs

4. Remove Tracker Configuration Files: Deleting the Tracker configuration files will ensure that no residual settings remain. Run the following commands:

   rm -rf ~/.cache/tracker/
   rm -rf ~/.local/share/tracker/
   rm -rf ~/.config/tracker/

5. Uninstall Tracker Packages (Optional): If you are certain that you do not need Tracker at all, you can uninstall the Tracker packages. Use your package manager to remove them. For example, on a Debian-based system, you can use:

   sudo apt-get remove tracker tracker-miner-fs tracker-extract

6. Verify Tracker is Disabled: To confirm that Tracker is no longer running, you can use the ps command to check for any Tracker-related processes:

   ps aux | grep tracker

   If the command returns no results (other than the grep command itself), Tracker has been successfully disabled.