Is it necessary for buffer to be switched to org-mode when extracting info from org documents?

I am doing some processing of some org documents and after loading the file into non interactive buffers I set org-mode before doing the processing. The code runs along this line (with-temp-buffer (insert-file-contents-literally full-filename) (org-mode) ... I suspect that running `org-mode` after I open the file is the reason why it is slow. Can the same processing be done so long as the files is not interactively edited? The task involved is a read-only task?

Have you tried just not running `(org-mode)`. I mean, it would’ve been easier.

I run `(org-mode)` because I assume that some of the org functions may not run properly if the file is not in `org-mode`

Try it and see if it works. Probably the org functions do require something, though.

`(delay-mode-hooks (org-mode))` is faster and probably still serves your purpose.

For faster startup I suggest, `(let ((org-inhibit-startup t)) (org-mode))`. It is how org-mode does batch processing internally. If things are still slow with the suggested approach, can you profile the performance and share results?