# Getting Started

You need to have at least **Java** {{ java_version }} and have properly configured
`JAVA_HOME` to point to your Java installation directory. For example
on MacOS if you are using sdkman you can define in your `~/.bash_profile` file:

```sh
export JAVA_HOME="~/.sdkman/candidates/java/current"
```

## Start FSCrawler

Start FSCrawler with:

```sh
bin/fscrawler
```

FSCrawler will read a local file (default to `~/.fscrawler/fscrawler/_settings.yaml`). If the file does not exist,
you can ask to create it using the `--setup` command.

```sh
$ bin/fscrawler --setup
17:40:33,905 INFO  [f.console] You can edit the settings in [~/.fscrawler/fscrawler/_settings.yaml]. Then, you can run again fscrawler without the --setup option.
```

Create a directory named `/tmp/es` or `c:\tmp\es`, add some files
you want to index in it and start again:

```sh
$ bin/fscrawler
17:41:45,395 INFO  [f.p.e.c.f.FsCrawlerImpl] FSCrawler is now connected to Elasticsearch version [9.0.0]
17:41:45,395 INFO  [f.p.e.c.f.FsCrawlerImpl] FSCrawler started in watch mode. It will run unless you stop it with CTRL+C.
17:41:45,395 INFO  [f.p.e.c.f.FsParser] FS crawler started for [fscrawler] for [/tmp/es] every [15m]
```

If you did not create the directory, FSCrawler will complain until you fix it:

```none
17:41:45,396 INFO  [f.p.e.c.f.FsParser] Run #1: job [fscrawler]: starting...
17:41:45,397 WARN  [f.p.e.c.f.FsParser] Error while crawling /tmp/es: /tmp/es doesn't exists.
```

## Searching for docs

This is a common use case in elasticsearch, we want to search for something! 😉

```json
// GET docs/doc/_search
{
  "query" : {
    "query_string": {
      "query": "I am searching for something!"
    }
  }
}
```

See {ref}`search-examples` for more examples.

## Ignoring folders

If you would like to ignore some folders to be scanned, just add a `.fscrawlerignore` file in it.
The folder content and all sub folders will be ignored.

For more information, read {ref}`includes_excludes`.