Scripting solution to disable it permanently on Ubuntu 16.04

As mention in the comments, files mention in this post no longer exist in 16.04. You can use the following script (source):

echo -e "

Hidden=true

" | sudo tee --append /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-extract.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-miner-apps.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-miner-fs.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-miner-user-guides.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-store.desktop > /dev/null



# Interval in days to check whether the filesystem is up to date in the database. 0 forces crawling anytime, -1 forces it only after unclean shutdowns, and -2 disables it entirely

gsettings set org.freedesktop.Tracker.Miner.Files crawling-interval -2  # Default: -1

# Set to false to completely disable any file monitoring

gsettings set org.freedesktop.Tracker.Miner.Files enable-monitors false # Default: true

Cleanup the database with:

tracker3 reset --filesystem --rss  # Tracker v3+



# Or, for older versions

tracker reset --hard  # 

These are confirmed bugs on Launchpad: 911981, 925948, 1063255.

What does these processes do?

Tracker is a synergy of technologies that are designed to provide a
highly sophisticated, innovative and integrated desktop.

Tracker provides the following:

• Indexer for desktop search (for more details see this spec : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntegratedDesktopSearch)


• Tag database for doing keyword tagging of any object


• Extensible metadata database for apps like gedit and rhythmbox which need to add custom metadata to files


• Database for first class objects allows using tracker's database for storage and implementation of First Class Objects and the Gnome 3.0
  Model.

How to get rid of processes?

1. Disabling tracker for globally (for all users)

   
   



2. Edit /etc/xdg/autostart/trackerd.desktop file with root privileges (sudo -i gedit /etc/xdg/autostart/trackerd.desktop)

   
   



3. Add Hidden=true to the end of the file

   
   



4. Do the same for /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-applet.desktop if you want

   
   



5. Disabling tracker for your user only

   
   



6. Enter the directory ~/.config/autostart, create it if it does not exist

   
   



7. Create a file named trackerd.desktop

   
   



8. Paste the following into the file, save and exit:

   
   

   [Desktop Entry]
   
   Encoding=UTF-8
   
   Name=Tracker
   
   Hidden=true
   
   

   
   

Source: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Tracker