5 ms·

Invaluable tool. Can handle massive collections of files. For power users it feels more appropriate to have a dedicated search engine application like recoll ra

Invaluable tool. Can handle massive collections of files. For power users it feels more appropriate to have a dedicated search engine application like recoll rather than embed search in the desktop (for a long time I was disabling baloo on KDE desktops as it would make the machine unusable while it was indexing). The recoll UI could be improved and in general the integration e.g. with python scipting or other tools could be made easier but this is a much appreciated project and it is good to see it keeps being developed. In an ideal universe projects such as this should converge with other desktop apps to create truly empowering information tools (repatriating the agency that has been relinquished to the "cloud")

sgc 4y ago
The resource use has been the death of any full text desktop search I have tried to use. How lightweight is Recoll? I don't see much on this on the website, other than I have to use an third part CPU limiter if I want to limit CPU use.
- college_physics 4y ago
  never had to dig too deep as it is not noticeable (up to a certain index size of course https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/usermanual/usermanual.html#RCL.INDEXING.STORAGE.BIG https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/usermanual/usermanual....). index scheduling can be configured (cron) but for my purposes it works ok out of the box. what is quite handy usability-wise: incremental index updates (after inserting new files) are fast and can be done on the fly while fully using the desktop
- donio 4y ago
  Both recoll and Xapian (the index engine) are written in C++. The document filters are in Python but they only run once per document and tend to be simple and fast (easy to add your own too btw). For my use case of 15GB or so PDF files it has been lean and fast. It has a pragmatic Unix tool feel. I am only using the CLI though so can't speak for the GUI. Another Xapian-based tool I use is notmuch (email) and that one is very snappy too.

sgc 4y ago

The resource use has been the death of any full text desktop search I have tried to use. How lightweight is Recoll? I don't see much on this on the website, other than I have to use an third part CPU limiter if I want to limit CPU use.

college_physics 4y ago
never had to dig too deep as it is not noticeable (up to a certain index size of course https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/usermanual/usermanual.html#RCL.INDEXING.STORAGE.BIG https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/usermanual/usermanual....). index scheduling can be configured (cron) but for my purposes it works ok out of the box. what is quite handy usability-wise: incremental index updates (after inserting new files) are fast and can be done on the fly while fully using the desktop
donio 4y ago
Both recoll and Xapian (the index engine) are written in C++. The document filters are in Python but they only run once per document and tend to be simple and fast (easy to add your own too btw). For my use case of 15GB or so PDF files it has been lean and fast. It has a pragmatic Unix tool feel. I am only using the CLI though so can't speak for the GUI. Another Xapian-based tool I use is notmuch (email) and that one is very snappy too.