diff --git a/lib/main.dart b/lib/main.dart
index 8e553280b..ce1d567d9 100644
--- a/lib/main.dart
+++ b/lib/main.dart
@@ -193,7 +193,7 @@ Future<void> _init(bool isBackground, {String via = ''}) async {
     });
   }
   unawaited(FeatureFlagService.instance.init());
-  unawaited(SemanticSearchService.instance.init());
+  unawaited(SemanticSearchService.instance.init(isInBackground: isBackground));
   // Can not including existing tf/ml binaries as they are not being built
   // from source.
   // See https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/12671#note_1294346819
diff --git a/lib/services/semantic_search/semantic_search_service.dart b/lib/services/semantic_search/semantic_search_service.dart
index 16408db30..51291e2cf 100644
--- a/lib/services/semantic_search/semantic_search_service.dart
+++ b/lib/services/semantic_search/semantic_search_service.dart
@@ -66,7 +66,10 @@ class SemanticSearchService {
     }
   }
 
-  Future<void> init({bool shouldSyncImmediately = false}) async {
+  Future<void> init({
+    bool shouldSyncImmediately = false,
+    bool isInBackground = false,
+  }) async {
     if (!LocalSettings.instance.hasEnabledMagicSearch()) {
       return;
     }
@@ -111,6 +114,10 @@ class SemanticSearchService {
     if (shouldSyncImmediately) {
       unawaited(sync());
     }
+    if (isInBackground) {
+      // Do not block on user interactions
+      resumeIndexing();
+    }
   }
 
   Future<void> release() async {