diff --git a/config/locales/server.en.yml b/config/locales/server.en.yml
index 50188377cf9..d13a167408c 100644
--- a/config/locales/server.en.yml
+++ b/config/locales/server.en.yml
@@ -828,6 +828,8 @@ en:
     min_private_message_title_length: "Minimum allowed title length for a message in characters"
     min_search_term_length: "Minimum valid search term length in characters"
     search_tokenize_chinese_japanese_korean: "Force search to tokenize Chinese/Japanese/Korean even on non CJK sites"
+    search_prefer_recent_posts: "If searching your large forum is slow, this option tries an index of more recent posts first"
+    search_recent_posts_size: "How many recent posts to keep in the index"
     allow_uncategorized_topics: "Allow topics to be created without a category. WARNING: If there are any uncategorized topics, you must recategorize them before turning this off."
     allow_duplicate_topic_titles: "Allow topics with identical, duplicate titles."
     unique_posts_mins: "How many minutes before a user can make a post with the same content again"
diff --git a/config/site_settings.yml b/config/site_settings.yml
index 8d6128c3b6a..d2e9fa2f059 100644
--- a/config/site_settings.yml
+++ b/config/site_settings.yml
@@ -1047,6 +1047,9 @@ uncategorized:
     default: 3
 
   search_tokenize_chinese_japanese_korean: false
+  search_prefer_recent_posts: false
+  search_recent_posts_size: 100000
+
   max_similar_results: 5
   minimum_topics_similar: 50
 
diff --git a/lib/search.rb b/lib/search.rb
index 007aa7a2d5e..c09e03ba1ba 100644
--- a/lib/search.rb
+++ b/lib/search.rb
@@ -128,6 +128,24 @@ class Search
     end
   end
 
+  def self.min_post_id_no_cache
+    return 0 unless SiteSetting.search_prefer_recent_posts?
+
+    offset = Post.count - SiteSetting.search_recent_posts_size
+    return 0 if offset <= 0
+
+    Post.order(:id).offset(offset).limit(1).pluck(:id)[0]
+  end
+
+  def self.min_post_id(opts=nil)
+    return 0 unless SiteSetting.search_prefer_recent_posts?
+
+    # It can be quite slow to count all the posts so let's cache it
+    Rails.cache.fetch("search-min-post-id:#{SiteSetting.search_recent_posts_size}", expires_in: 1.day) do
+      min_post_id_no_cache
+    end
+  end
+
   attr_accessor :term
 
   def initialize(term, opts=nil)
@@ -545,7 +563,16 @@ class Search
           posts = posts.joins('JOIN users u ON u.id = posts.user_id')
           posts = posts.where("posts.raw  || ' ' || u.username || ' ' || COALESCE(u.name, '') ilike ?", "%#{term_without_quote}%")
         else
+
+
           posts = posts.where("post_search_data.search_data @@ #{ts_query}")
+
+          min_id = Search.min_post_id
+          if min_id > 0
+            fast_query = posts.dup.where("post_search_data.post_id >= #{min_id}")
+            posts = fast_query if fast_query.dup.count >= 20
+          end
+
           exact_terms = @term.scan(/"([^"]+)"/).flatten
           exact_terms.each do |exact|
             posts = posts.where("posts.raw ilike ?", "%#{exact}%")
@@ -669,7 +696,7 @@ class Search
             .to_sql
         else
           posts_query(@limit, aggregate_search: true,
-                                     private_messages: opts[:private_messages])
+                              private_messages: opts[:private_messages])
             .select('topics.id', "#{min_or_max}(post_number) post_number")
             .group('topics.id')
             .to_sql
diff --git a/spec/components/search_spec.rb b/spec/components/search_spec.rb
index 287676e16af..8c478b8b2e9 100644
--- a/spec/components/search_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/components/search_spec.rb
@@ -644,4 +644,21 @@ describe Search do
     end
   end
 
+  context "#min_post_id" do
+    it "returns 0 when prefer_recent_posts is disabled" do
+      SiteSetting.search_prefer_recent_posts = false
+      expect(Search.min_post_id_no_cache).to eq(0)
+    end
+
+    it "returns a value when prefer_recent_posts is enabled" do
+      SiteSetting.search_prefer_recent_posts = true
+      SiteSetting.search_recent_posts_size = 1
+
+      Fabricate(:post)
+      p2 = Fabricate(:post)
+
+      expect(Search.min_post_id_no_cache).to eq(p2.id)
+    end
+  end
+
 end
diff --git a/spec/models/search_observer_spec.rb b/spec/models/search_observer_spec.rb
index dc0a2daaf38..fccf8612207 100644
--- a/spec/models/search_observer_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/models/search_observer_spec.rb
@@ -2,14 +2,6 @@ require 'rails_helper'
 
 describe SearchObserver do
 
-  def get_row(post_id)
-    SqlBuilder.map_exec(
-      OpenStruct,
-      "select * from post_search_data where post_id = :post_id",
-      post_id: post_id
-    ).first
-  end
-
   it 'correctly indexes chinese' do
     SiteSetting.default_locale = 'zh_CN'
     data = "你好世界"
@@ -17,8 +9,8 @@ describe SearchObserver do
 
     SearchObserver.update_posts_index(99, "你好世界", "", nil)
 
-    row = get_row(99)
-    expect(row.raw_data.split(' ').length).to eq(2)
+    raw_data = PostSearchData.where(post_id: 99).pluck(:raw_data)[0]
+    expect(raw_data.split(' ').length).to eq(2)
   end
 
   it 'correctly indexes a post' do
@@ -26,15 +18,13 @@ describe SearchObserver do
 
     SearchObserver.update_posts_index(99, data, "", nil)
 
-    row = get_row(99)
-
-    expect(row.raw_data).to eq("This is a test")
-    expect(row.locale).to eq("en")
+    raw_data, locale = PostSearchData.where(post_id: 99).pluck(:raw_data, :locale)[0]
+    expect(raw_data).to eq("This is a test")
+    expect(locale).to eq("en")
 
     SearchObserver.update_posts_index(99, "tester", "", nil)
 
-    row = get_row(99)
-
-    expect(row.raw_data).to eq("tester")
+    raw_data = PostSearchData.where(post_id: 99).pluck(:raw_data)[0]
+    expect(raw_data).to eq("tester")
   end
 end