Comparisons

Cling and external drives

Updated 2026-08-05 · 5 min read

Searching a drive that is not currently connected sounds impossible. It is not, and it is one of the more useful things a file index can do.

The feature

Cling Pro maintains persistent indexes for USB drives, external hard drives and network shares, and those indexes keep working when the volume is unmounted.

So you can search for a file, and be told it exists on the drive labelled Archive 2019 — without that drive being plugged in.

Why that matters

Anyone with more than two external drives has had this problem. You know the file exists. You do not know which of six drives it is on. Without a persistent index the only method is plugging each one in and searching it, which takes an evening.

With one, the search tells you which drive before you go looking. It is the difference between finding a file and conducting a search of your own desk drawers.

The free-tier limit

External volume indexing is a Pro feature. In free mode, unplugged drives are not searchable.

Given the licence is €12 once, this is a small barrier — but it is worth knowing before you test the free version against exactly the problem it does not cover, and conclude the app cannot do it.

How Everywhere handles the same thing

Disclosed bias, ours: Everywhere indexes external volumes as separate trees and keeps their records after the drive is unplugged, in the standard version rather than a paid tier. Search results show the file and its volume; opening it asks for the drive.

It also skips Time Machine destinations by default, and lets you switch any drive off individually — because a Time Machine disk holds a complete copy of your Mac for every backup ever taken, and indexing one is not slow but effectively endless. We learned that from a customer whose scan reached 34 million files and was still climbing.

The practical advice

If you have archive drives, this feature is the reason to buy a licence for whichever tool you choose. It is the single largest quality-of-life difference in this category, and it is invisible until the first time it saves you an hour.

Common questions

Can Cling search a drive that is not plugged in?

With a Pro licence, yes — persistent indexes for external and network volumes keep working while the volume is unmounted.

Is external drive search free in Cling?

No, it is a Pro feature. The free tier does not keep indexes for unmounted volumes.

Should I index my Time Machine drive?

No. A Time Machine disk holds a full copy of your Mac for every backup ever made, so indexing one is effectively unbounded work for duplicates of files you already have.