7 ms·

Everything – Locate files and folders by name instantly on Windows

103 points by rococode 8y ago

enitihas 8y ago
This is the only tool I miss from Windows on macOS and linux both. It allows you to search for every single file on your system, allows regex searches. It also allows you to sort the matching files by any arbitrary criteria, e.g, size. It is also incredibly fast, so searching a 1TB HDD is instantaneous. People are mentioning Spotlight here, and I think it is better than Windows search, but is simply not as good as Everything. I haven't tried Alfred so won't comment on it. On Linux also your best bet is to use find( or some gui which does something similar), but no tool offers the same kind of instantaneous full disk search like Everything.
- simcop2387 8y ago
  While it's a client tool, most Linux distros (and osx I think too) ship with the locate command that does this too.
  - teknopaul 8y ago
    There is a version of locate/updatedb for windows as well. I think it is called locate32. I cant use a computer for dev without locate
    - atjd 8y ago
      Everything use a feature provided by NTFS file system, so the `updatedb` part is incredibly fast, i haven't found anything that can even come close on macos/linux.
    - homarp 8y ago
      and you can also try fd https://github.com/sharkdp/fd https://github.com/sharkdp/fd (it works without index)
  - ubercow13 8y ago
    Locate is kind of slow, even just executing a search is slower than Everything
Jaruzel 8y ago
What I'm really after is a web based search portal for all my network data that's hosted on SMB shares. It needs to be easy to setup and manage (so my other half can use it) and understand Windows domain security. Google-in-a-box used to do it (badly), and MS SharePoint Search (bloated and slow). Neither of which are suitable these days. Any ideas anyone?
aynawn 8y ago
I use this and it's like ripgrep gui for Windows. It's awesome.
- jzl 8y ago
  Or "locate".
cyilcode 8y ago
I have been using this for ages. The most underrated windows tool ever.
rfeague 8y ago
Not sure what made this suddenly appear here after so many years, but I LOVE this tool, and now that I'm on MacOS, I REALLY wish there was an equivalent. It's mystifying to me why this isn't a built-in OS feature.
- ksahin 8y ago
  Spotlight or better, Alfred ?
qualsiasi 8y ago
I discovered this tool last week and suddenly fell in love with it. Is it possible to bind it to a hotkey like spotlight? However if it where to fuzzy match like sublime’s super+p I would love it even more.
- MarsAscendant 8y ago
  It's fuzzy alright: https://i.imgur.com/rYXDsgs.png https://i.imgur.com/rYXDsgs.png – or did you mean something different? You can hotkey it if you have a shortcut stored somewhere. Right-click on the shortcut → Properties → Shortcut menu → Shotcut Key line
  - qualsiasi 8y ago
    With fuzzy I mean that: "foobar" may match a file named foosomethingbar. Like this: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*VeGVAZsCVUYXrbI376oGCQ.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*VeGVAZsCVUYXrbI37...
- batiudrami 8y ago
  Tools > Options > Keyboard > New Window Hotkey is what you're looking for :)
- Multicomp 8y ago
  Options - Keyboard - Toggle Window hotkey. I use Alt + / to search, get results, then again to close the window right back to whatever I was foing
- Zekio 8y ago
  You can use https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox as an interface for Everything which has configurable hotkeys
nikbackm 8y ago
It's great, but it does not search file contents and metadata like e.g. mp3 tags so cannot fully replace the builtin Windows search.
- jobigoud 8y ago
  For file content search I use Astrogrep. Been using it for many years and very happy with it.
alex_hitchins 8y ago
This is a fantastic tool, been using it for years and years now. For file contents search I use AgentRansack.
CJKerr 8y ago
I like Listary - I haven't used Everything to compare, but I'm aware that they're similar. For text file contents I'm a huge advocate for ripgrep , and for metadata...to be honest I don't have a great solution, so I'll be keeping an eye on the recommendations here.
- galfarragem 8y ago
  Everything usecase is when you need to search really everything. Most times you don't and in that cases Listary is way friendlier.
- joshschreuder 8y ago
  On Windows, Agent Ransack is really good.
- saltyshake 8y ago
  Listary is awesome. Been using it for three years.
Traubenfuchs 8y ago
One of the very few tools I really miss on OSX.
- mosselman 8y ago
  What about spotlight?
  - enitihas 8y ago
    Spotlight is no where near as feature complete as Everything. Everything literally searches "everything". Searching every single file on your disk matching a regex sorted by file size, piece of cake.
- ksahin 8y ago
  What about Alfred? https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/
gammateam 8y ago
Need this on OSX Its somehow begun to suck by making too many assumptions
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  Alfred does a great job of fast, system-wise file search. Not sure if you need the Powerpack or not, but Alfred’s file command (and the rest of it, come to that) is such that I call it a macOS necessity.
joshschreuder 8y ago
I switched away from this to Wizfile [0] and I really recommend it. That plus Wiztree [1] as a replacement for Windirstat have made me a real fan of the devs. [0] https://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wizfile-finds-your-files-fast/ https://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wizfile-... [1] https://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wiztree-finds-the-files-and-folders-using-the-most-disk-space-on-your-hard-drive/ https://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wiztree-...
- Semaphor 8y ago
  Care to write about why you prefer Wizfile over Everything? Between Wiztree and Windirstat it's obvious as Windirstat is extremely slow.
  - joshschreuder 8y ago
    I don't want to put Everything down because I still think it's a good app but anecdotally I have seen Everything using constant % CPU (I assume it was indexing search, and it wasn't a huge amount but still). This is across a few PCs I've put it on. I believe Wizfile doesn't have an index as it does everything via the MFT so I don't even need to keep it running in the background at all times unless I want to quickly call up search. YMMV.
- tapland 8y ago
  Does this support network locations? Mapping to a drive to make it work in everything works for some things but in general everything is pretty bad at non-physical and non-local drives. Edit: Doesn't seem like it. The drive that I can add as a folder in Everything doesn't show up at all in WizFile
  - joshschreuder 8y ago
    I'm not 100% sure as I don't search network locations, but from what I can see you can add Network-ed computers via Options -> Select Drives -> Add Folder. I only have my own machine right now to test but searching seemed like it might work?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
onurtag 8y ago
Using everything with an autohotkey script that replaces Ctrl+F for years now. If I Ctrl+F while an explorer window is open it allows me to search within that folder. Same with desktop, documents and taskbar.
- piyush_soni 8y ago
  Can you please share the AHK script? :)
  - onurtag 8y ago
    Here it is: https://gist.github.com/Onurtag/166df8b88744c48e93a64b7c89652e0a https://gist.github.com/Onurtag/166df8b88744c48e93a64b7c8965...
    - piyush_soni 8y ago
      Awesome, thanks!
retSava 8y ago
Something like this, or the Sublime text omnibox (whatever it's called), is what the Windows search box should be. Ie the one you get when pressing the super/win button then start typing. It's embarrassingly bad currently. Typing 'word' the first suggestion is wordpad, not ms office word, despite me never running wordpad other than on accident. Not only bad string matching, it doesn't take into account how frequently I use either app, despite the user tracking the OS does. Strange is the land indeed.
Tsubasachan 8y ago
I love this tool. Windows search is really really bad, and for some unholy reason throws Cortana and Bing into it. I want to search for things on my PC not the internet!
rabscuttler 8y ago
I've used Find and Run Robot (FARR)[0] for years on Windows and can thoroughly recommend it due to its speed and suggestions based on use frequency. [0] http://www.donationcoder.com/software/mouser/popular-apps/farr http://www.donationcoder.com/software/mouser/popular-apps/fa...
ryansmccoy 8y ago
This, along with xplorer2, are among two most used programs on my Windows computer. Really quick in general, including thumbnail generation for pdf/images/etc and monitoring folders/files in realtime. custom keyboard shortcuts: CTRL+SHIFT+E - open everything CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+q - filter pdf -> ext:pdf CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+e - filter excel -> ext:xlsx;xlsm;xlsb;xltx;xltm;xlt;xls;xlam;xla;xlw CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+d - filter all documents -> ext:xps;pdf;msg;docx;doc;pptx;ppt;xlsx;xlsm;csv;xlsb;xls; documents or downloads folders -> path:documents|path:downloads
- com2kid 8y ago
  Add switcheroo to that list. Best alt-tab supplement out there, lets you change programs by typing their name with auto-complete.
lmcarreiro 8y ago
It is fast, even inside node_modules folder!
avinashsonee 8y ago
Pretty good tool. Have been using this for many years. + Supports REGEX search. + Enable HTTP server and then expose the port using ngrok and you can search your system from anywhere. + Supports Hotkey (Ctrl+E is what I use)
- abdusco 8y ago
  I typically use `[Win] + [S]`, which feels more natural to me. Easy way is to disable default Cortana search bound to `Win+S` by a registry hack [1] or just use AutoHotkey [2]. [1]: https://superuser.com/a/707293 https://superuser.com/a/707293 [2]: https://www.autohotkey.com/ https://www.autohotkey.com/
ObscureScience 8y ago
Interface-wise we got Fsearch (https://github.com/cboxdoerfer/fsearch https://github.com/cboxdoerfer/fsearch) on Linux, but it's not feature complete. I love Everything, and I get a bit nostaligic over these simple but feature packed windows apps that are all but living fossils in the .NET and WFP times.
newscracker 8y ago
I use this, but most often as the underlying engine for the Wox launcher. [1] Everything is quite fast. I haven’t gone deeper into it to see how I can avoid duplicate results. [1]: https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox
yboris 8y ago
Shameless plug for my open source project for a better way to search and browse videos files you have: Video Hub App - https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App I love VidTools Everything - but for videos you might want to see previews of the content ;)

103 points by rococode 8y ago

This is the only tool I miss from Windows on macOS and linux both. It allows you to search for every single file on your system, allows regex searches. It also allows you to sort the matching files by any arbitrary criteria, e.g, size. It is also incredibly fast, so searching a 1TB HDD is instantaneous. People are mentioning Spotlight here, and I think it is better than Windows search, but is simply not as good as Everything. I haven't tried Alfred so won't comment on it. On Linux also your best bet is to use find( or some gui which does something similar), but no tool offers the same kind of instantaneous full disk search like Everything.

simcop2387 8y ago
While it's a client tool, most Linux distros (and osx I think too) ship with the locate command that does this too.
- teknopaul 8y ago
  There is a version of locate/updatedb for windows as well. I think it is called locate32. I cant use a computer for dev without locate
  - atjd 8y ago
    Everything use a feature provided by NTFS file system, so the `updatedb` part is incredibly fast, i haven't found anything that can even come close on macos/linux.
  - homarp 8y ago
    and you can also try fd https://github.com/sharkdp/fd https://github.com/sharkdp/fd (it works without index)
- ubercow13 8y ago
  Locate is kind of slow, even just executing a search is slower than Everything

Jaruzel 8y ago

What I'm really after is a web based search portal for all my network data that's hosted on SMB shares. It needs to be easy to setup and manage (so my other half can use it) and understand Windows domain security. Google-in-a-box used to do it (badly), and MS SharePoint Search (bloated and slow). Neither of which are suitable these days. Any ideas anyone?

aynawn 8y ago

I use this and it's like ripgrep gui for Windows. It's awesome.

jzl 8y ago
Or "locate".

cyilcode 8y ago

I have been using this for ages. The most underrated windows tool ever.

rfeague 8y ago

Not sure what made this suddenly appear here after so many years, but I LOVE this tool, and now that I'm on MacOS, I REALLY wish there was an equivalent. It's mystifying to me why this isn't a built-in OS feature.

ksahin 8y ago
Spotlight or better, Alfred ?

qualsiasi 8y ago

I discovered this tool last week and suddenly fell in love with it. Is it possible to bind it to a hotkey like spotlight? However if it where to fuzzy match like sublime’s super+p I would love it even more.

MarsAscendant 8y ago
It's fuzzy alright: https://i.imgur.com/rYXDsgs.png https://i.imgur.com/rYXDsgs.png – or did you mean something different? You can hotkey it if you have a shortcut stored somewhere. Right-click on the shortcut → Properties → Shortcut menu → Shotcut Key line
- qualsiasi 8y ago
  With fuzzy I mean that: "foobar" may match a file named foosomethingbar. Like this: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*VeGVAZsCVUYXrbI376oGCQ.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*VeGVAZsCVUYXrbI37...
batiudrami 8y ago
Tools > Options > Keyboard > New Window Hotkey is what you're looking for :)
Multicomp 8y ago
Options - Keyboard - Toggle Window hotkey. I use Alt + / to search, get results, then again to close the window right back to whatever I was foing
Zekio 8y ago
You can use https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox as an interface for Everything which has configurable hotkeys

nikbackm 8y ago

It's great, but it does not search file contents and metadata like e.g. mp3 tags so cannot fully replace the builtin Windows search.

jobigoud 8y ago
For file content search I use Astrogrep. Been using it for many years and very happy with it.

alex_hitchins 8y ago

This is a fantastic tool, been using it for years and years now. For file contents search I use AgentRansack.

CJKerr 8y ago

I like Listary - I haven't used Everything to compare, but I'm aware that they're similar. For text file contents I'm a huge advocate for ripgrep , and for metadata...to be honest I don't have a great solution, so I'll be keeping an eye on the recommendations here.

galfarragem 8y ago
Everything usecase is when you need to search really everything. Most times you don't and in that cases Listary is way friendlier.
joshschreuder 8y ago
On Windows, Agent Ransack is really good.
saltyshake 8y ago
Listary is awesome. Been using it for three years.

Traubenfuchs 8y ago

One of the very few tools I really miss on OSX.

mosselman 8y ago
What about spotlight?
- enitihas 8y ago
  Spotlight is no where near as feature complete as Everything. Everything literally searches "everything". Searching every single file on your disk matching a regex sorted by file size, piece of cake.
ksahin 8y ago
What about Alfred? https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/

gammateam 8y ago

Need this on OSX Its somehow begun to suck by making too many assumptions

zapzupnz 8y ago
Alfred does a great job of fast, system-wise file search. Not sure if you need the Powerpack or not, but Alfred’s file command (and the rest of it, come to that) is such that I call it a macOS necessity.

joshschreuder 8y ago

I switched away from this to Wizfile [0] and I really recommend it. That plus Wiztree [1] as a replacement for Windirstat have made me a real fan of the devs. [0] https://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wizfile-finds-your-files-fast/ https://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wizfile-... [1] https://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wiztree-finds-the-files-and-folders-using-the-most-disk-space-on-your-hard-drive/ https://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wiztree-...

Semaphor 8y ago
Care to write about why you prefer Wizfile over Everything? Between Wiztree and Windirstat it's obvious as Windirstat is extremely slow.
- joshschreuder 8y ago
  I don't want to put Everything down because I still think it's a good app but anecdotally I have seen Everything using constant % CPU (I assume it was indexing search, and it wasn't a huge amount but still). This is across a few PCs I've put it on. I believe Wizfile doesn't have an index as it does everything via the MFT so I don't even need to keep it running in the background at all times unless I want to quickly call up search. YMMV.
tapland 8y ago
Does this support network locations? Mapping to a drive to make it work in everything works for some things but in general everything is pretty bad at non-physical and non-local drives. Edit: Doesn't seem like it. The drive that I can add as a folder in Everything doesn't show up at all in WizFile
- joshschreuder 8y ago
  I'm not 100% sure as I don't search network locations, but from what I can see you can add Network-ed computers via Options -> Select Drives -> Add Folder. I only have my own machine right now to test but searching seemed like it might work?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

onurtag 8y ago

Using everything with an autohotkey script that replaces Ctrl+F for years now. If I Ctrl+F while an explorer window is open it allows me to search within that folder. Same with desktop, documents and taskbar.

piyush_soni 8y ago
Can you please share the AHK script? :)
- onurtag 8y ago
  Here it is: https://gist.github.com/Onurtag/166df8b88744c48e93a64b7c89652e0a https://gist.github.com/Onurtag/166df8b88744c48e93a64b7c8965...
  - piyush_soni 8y ago
    Awesome, thanks!

retSava 8y ago

Something like this, or the Sublime text omnibox (whatever it's called), is what the Windows search box should be. Ie the one you get when pressing the super/win button then start typing. It's embarrassingly bad currently. Typing 'word' the first suggestion is wordpad, not ms office word, despite me never running wordpad other than on accident. Not only bad string matching, it doesn't take into account how frequently I use either app, despite the user tracking the OS does. Strange is the land indeed.

Tsubasachan 8y ago

I love this tool. Windows search is really really bad, and for some unholy reason throws Cortana and Bing into it. I want to search for things on my PC not the internet!

rabscuttler 8y ago

I've used Find and Run Robot (FARR)[0] for years on Windows and can thoroughly recommend it due to its speed and suggestions based on use frequency. [0] http://www.donationcoder.com/software/mouser/popular-apps/farr http://www.donationcoder.com/software/mouser/popular-apps/fa...

ryansmccoy 8y ago

This, along with xplorer2, are among two most used programs on my Windows computer. Really quick in general, including thumbnail generation for pdf/images/etc and monitoring folders/files in realtime. custom keyboard shortcuts: CTRL+SHIFT+E - open everything CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+q - filter pdf -> ext:pdf CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+e - filter excel -> ext:xlsx;xlsm;xlsb;xltx;xltm;xlt;xls;xlam;xla;xlw CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+d - filter all documents -> ext:xps;pdf;msg;docx;doc;pptx;ppt;xlsx;xlsm;csv;xlsb;xls; documents or downloads folders -> path:documents|path:downloads

com2kid 8y ago
Add switcheroo to that list. Best alt-tab supplement out there, lets you change programs by typing their name with auto-complete.

lmcarreiro 8y ago

It is fast, even inside node_modules folder!

avinashsonee 8y ago

Pretty good tool. Have been using this for many years. + Supports REGEX search. + Enable HTTP server and then expose the port using ngrok and you can search your system from anywhere. + Supports Hotkey (Ctrl+E is what I use)

abdusco 8y ago
I typically use `[Win] + [S]`, which feels more natural to me. Easy way is to disable default Cortana search bound to `Win+S` by a registry hack [1] or just use AutoHotkey [2]. [1]: https://superuser.com/a/707293 https://superuser.com/a/707293 [2]: https://www.autohotkey.com/ https://www.autohotkey.com/

ObscureScience 8y ago

Interface-wise we got Fsearch (https://github.com/cboxdoerfer/fsearch https://github.com/cboxdoerfer/fsearch) on Linux, but it's not feature complete. I love Everything, and I get a bit nostaligic over these simple but feature packed windows apps that are all but living fossils in the .NET and WFP times.

newscracker 8y ago

I use this, but most often as the underlying engine for the Wox launcher. [1] Everything is quite fast. I haven’t gone deeper into it to see how I can avoid duplicate results. [1]: https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox

yboris 8y ago

Shameless plug for my open source project for a better way to search and browse videos files you have: Video Hub App - https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App I love VidTools Everything - but for videos you might want to see previews of the content ;)