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This is a common need: sharing an index for documentation common to several users, to avoid the need for multiple setups and duplicate indexing.

There are two possible approaches:

  • Have users run the normal GUI application, and add the shared index as an external index.

  • Use the Recoll Web UI.

The first approach allows the full functionality of the GUI (and possibly, personal indexes in addition to the shared one), but supposes that the users all have access to the volume where the common index is stored. Also, it does not work for mobile users.

The Web UI is a little less powerful, but it may be useful in more loosely coupled environments.

Using the GUI and an external index

Set up a normal installation somewhere, and configure it to create the shared index.

You will generally prevent indexing of the user profile (delete ~ or %USERPROFILE% from the start folders list in the index configuration (Preferences→Index configuration→Global parameters).

Then add the required folders to the Start folders list. You may also want to adjust the database directory location (same screen, Database directory entry). Choose a location accessible for the future users. Note that only this directory will be actually used, not the full configuration directory.

Then run indexing.

For each user, perform a regular Recoll installation.

Don’t run indexing at once, but take the opportunity to edit the configuration. Possibly replace the user profile with an empty directory in the Start folders list if local indexing is not wanted. Run indexing to initialize things locally.

Then go to Query→External index dialog and add the shared database folder (Add index at the bottom left).

You will then probably want to adjust the paths seen in the results on the local machine, in case they differ from what is actually stored in the index. Select the added index in the list, then click Path translations and enter the stored and translated path prefixes.

Note that all the configuration (both the start folders adjustments and the path translations) are stored in simple text files, so that it’s quite possible to automate things.

Using the Recoll Web UI

The first part of creating the index is the same as the above. On Windows, you can then refer to Installing and running the Recoll WebUI on Windows to install the Web service. Linux users can just refer to the regular documentation.