HACKER Q&A
📣 high_byte

Best Windows file search tool?


Windows search sucks. There used to be Google Desktop which found any file instantly, similarly to gmail search.

What are the best indexing tools today? and file managers in general, like explorer alternatives.

  👤 wexq Accepted Answer ✓
"Everything", https://www.voidtools.com

Fast indexing, instant search, does regex and other advanced searches.

For file managers, maybe Total Commander or One Commander.

👤 fuzzfactor
The reason for indexing in Windows was so that searching NTFS volumes using Windows NTx.x didn't seem that much slower than searching FAT32 volumes when using W9x where there was no need for indexing.

And that was on hardware which was orders of magnitude slower, both processor and HDD.

People probably haven't benchmarked this on 21st century hardware in a while.

It can be amazing what a single 2GHz core can do when you give it a chance.

👤 majkinetor
Everything is the best and even linux tools can't compare. It also has great command line tools es.exe.

Double Commander is the best FOSS file manager on Windows (TC clone) and other OSes.

You can install/update all via chocolatey: cinst everything doublecmd

👤 DaOne256
Locate (fka Locate32). Looks like the old Windows 95/98 search tool. Supports indexing.
👤 llampx
I like Listary, its a sort of Spotlight for files.
👤 techload
"Everything Search".