Downloads directory with "I" attribute (lsattr)

[swirler]

I was digging around trying to figure out why some application was misbehaving and accidentally found that my Downloads directory in Jessie has this "I" attribute according to the lsattr command

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----------I--e-- /home/debian/Downloads

which, accordingly to the lstattr manpage, means that this directory

is being indexed using hashed trees

by the htree function of the ext4 filesystem - if I got this right.

My question being, is that normal (to have this one directory indexed) on a regular installation of a Debian Jessie desktop system ?

[phenest]

I wasn't aware of this indexing. I checked my $HOME directory and found both ./videos and ./downloads directories have this attribute.

[swirler]

I've checked on other systems and I've found other directories indexed like that too, different ones on different systems : I'd imagine the system decides which directories need to be indexed based on their contents?

Also, in this case my Downloads directory is listed like that

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----------I--e-- /home/debian/Downloads

but, actually, it's just one subdirectory containing many zip files that is indexed - not the whole Downloads directory.