mdutil:tldr:ecdc9

The command "mdutil -i ${select} ${path-to-volume}" is used to manage Spotlight indexing on a specific volume or directory on a macOS system.

Here's the breakdown of the command components:

• "mdutil" stands for "Metadata Utility." It is a command-line tool in macOS used to manage Spotlight indexing.
• "-i" is an option that specifies the action to be performed. In this case, it stands for "indexing."
• "${select}" is a placeholder that should be replaced with either "on" or "off" to specify whether you want to enable or disable indexing.
• "${path-to-volume}" is another placeholder that needs to be substituted with the path to the volume or directory you want to manage the indexing for.

For example, let's say you want to enable Spotlight indexing on a volume called "MyVolume." The command would look like this: mdutil -i on /Volumes/MyVolume

In this case, "on" is passed as the ${select} placeholder, and "/Volumes/MyVolume" is the ${path-to-volume} placeholder, representing the volume on which you want to enable indexing.

Conversely, to disable indexing on the same volume, you would use: mdutil -i off /Volumes/MyVolume