lib/PublicInbox/SearchIdx.pm      | 1 +
 lib/PublicInbox/SearchIdxShard.pm | 2 +-
 lib/PublicInbox/V2Writable.pm     | 8 ++++++--

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/SearchIdx.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/SearchIdx.pm
index a7005051d9deef241fab065dd05072348e80d8ce..adced0762b41487d5bdaa69517db157901bf3076 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/SearchIdx.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/SearchIdx.pm
@@ -397,6 +397,7 @@ }
 
 sub add_xapian ($$$$) {
 	my ($self, $eml, $smsg, $mids) = @_;
+	begin_txn_lazy($self);
 	my $doc = eml2doc($self, $eml, $smsg, $mids);
 	$self->{xdb}->replace_document($smsg->{num}, $doc);
 }
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/SearchIdxShard.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/SearchIdxShard.pm
index 0051df9305286f39ea5329bfb4f64bb4bbde83d8..1598faebdc9b53b621ef369b9a249198723ca705 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/SearchIdxShard.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/SearchIdxShard.pm
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@
 sub index_eml {
 	my ($self, $eml, $smsg, $eidx_key) = @_;
 	$smsg->{eidx_key} = $eidx_key if defined $eidx_key;
-	$self->ipc_do('add_message', $eml, $smsg);
+	$self->ipc_do('add_xapian', $eml, $smsg);
 }
 
 # wait for return to determine when ipc_do('commit_txn_lazy') is done
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/V2Writable.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/V2Writable.pm
index 6be95979389b815a6486fc70456b5bfda0480cf7..459c7e86eed189782c5b2c4517af5587fb7d8ee4 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/V2Writable.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/V2Writable.pm
@@ -141,8 +141,10 @@ # indexes a message, returns true if checkpointing is needed
 sub do_idx ($$$) {
 	my ($self, $eml, $smsg) = @_;
 	$self->{oidx}->add_overview($eml, $smsg);
-	my $idx = idx_shard($self, $smsg->{num});
-	$idx->index_eml($eml, $smsg);
+	if ($self->{-need_xapian}) {
+		my $idx = idx_shard($self, $smsg->{num});
+		$idx->index_eml($eml, $smsg);
+	}
 	my $n = $self->{transact_bytes} += $smsg->{bytes};
 	$n >= $self->{batch_bytes};
 }
@@ -267,6 +269,7 @@ 	# idx_shards must be visible to all forked processes
 	my $max = $self->{shards} - 1;
 	my $idx = $self->{idx_shards} = [];
 	push @$idx, PublicInbox::SearchIdxShard->new($self, $_) for (0..$max);
+	$self->{-need_xapian} = $idx->[0]->need_xapian;
 
 	# SearchIdxShard may do their own flushing, so don't scale
 	# until after forking
@@ -1129,6 +1132,7 @@
 sub unindex_oid_aux ($$$) {
 	my ($self, $oid, $mid) = @_;
 	my @removed = $self->{oidx}->remove_oid($oid, $mid);
+	return unless $self->{-need_xapian};
 	for my $num (@removed) {
 		idx_shard($self, $num)->ipc_do('xdb_remove', $num);
 	}