5 ms·

Try `find / -iname "foo" 2>/dev/null`, works every time. Also can take quite some time.

hellfish 4y ago
fd takes less time, would recommend
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
On Windows, the fastest way seems to use WizTree to scan the whole hard drive (Takes only a couple seconds to scan an SSD, and even my 2 TB spinning HD with >900,000 files takes less than 15 seconds) and then search the results for the filename.
- clockwork-dev 4y ago
  Haven't tried this one, thanks. There's also Everything [0] which is usually my favorite search for Windows. Fast and supports regex. [0] https://www.voidtools.com/ https://www.voidtools.com/
  - rococode 4y ago
    Everything search is incredible, for me it serves nearly instant searches for 15TB+ of data without any trouble. I think the secret sauce is a background service which continuously updates the file index. I also like WinDirStat a lot for Windows file management, which is not really for search but gives a great view of disk usage.
    - delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
      > I think the secret sauce is a background service which continuously updates the file index Actually, the secret sauce to both WizTree's and Everything's speed is the NTFS Master File Table (MFT) [1]. [1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/master-file-table https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maste...
      - hackrnusr 4y ago
        Is there an open source analog of voidtools Everything yet? Have never been able to find anything.
        pynappo 4y ago
        I've seen flow launcher recommended but haven't personally tried it out yet
        hackrnusr 4y ago
        Thanks for the suggestion. Probably worth benchmarking against fzf/ripgrep when I can find the time.
        kid64 4y ago
        There's this, which I haven't tried: https://github.com/ChrisS85/FastFileSearch https://github.com/ChrisS85/FastFileSearch SwiftSearch is excellent and uses the same tech: https://sourceforge.net/projects/swiftsearch/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/swiftsearch/
      - yonz 4y ago
        So why do the stock implementations suck?
bravetraveler 4y ago
mlocate/plocate (for locate and updatedb) are also nice Even if the db is not up to date, it's likely faster to update/search than rely on find I find simple searches by file name useful, but that's also because I'm fairly diligent to keep my filesystems organized The launcher called Albert is helpful as a sort of Spotlight stand-in with Linux (maybe elsewhere?). It does math, runs things, and can have things like a dictionary added. I believe it can also search
- bravetraveler 4y ago
  Lost my ability to edit, but here's a link to Albert: https://albertlauncher.github.io/ https://albertlauncher.github.io/ The demonstrations there confirm searching... and way more than I can do justice here
  - abdullahkhalids 4y ago
    Albert is pretty good. I also catfish https://launchpad.net/catfish-search https://launchpad.net/catfish-search which is excellent. Also can search within text files.
    - yonz 4y ago
      Are either of you concerned about giving permissions to almost everything? I think that was why I uninstalled Albert.
      - abdullahkhalids 4y ago
        I am not sure what special permissions you are talking about that Albert gets? Just like any other software, it can do whatever the user can do. As far as I understand it doesn't "phone home" or anything with my data. And doesn't really delete or move files in any way.
      - bravetraveler 4y ago
        A bit, I'll admit I haven't audited it as much as I should -- are you aware of anything in particular? I install it through the Fedora repositories and only use the bundled extensions, so I don't worry too much about it

fd takes less time, would recommend

On Windows, the fastest way seems to use WizTree to scan the whole hard drive (Takes only a couple seconds to scan an SSD, and even my 2 TB spinning HD with >900,000 files takes less than 15 seconds) and then search the results for the filename.

clockwork-dev 4y ago
Haven't tried this one, thanks. There's also Everything [0] which is usually my favorite search for Windows. Fast and supports regex. [0] https://www.voidtools.com/ https://www.voidtools.com/
- rococode 4y ago
  Everything search is incredible, for me it serves nearly instant searches for 15TB+ of data without any trouble. I think the secret sauce is a background service which continuously updates the file index. I also like WinDirStat a lot for Windows file management, which is not really for search but gives a great view of disk usage.
  - delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
    > I think the secret sauce is a background service which continuously updates the file index Actually, the secret sauce to both WizTree's and Everything's speed is the NTFS Master File Table (MFT) [1]. [1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/master-file-table https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maste...
    - hackrnusr 4y ago
      Is there an open source analog of voidtools Everything yet? Have never been able to find anything.
      - pynappo 4y ago
        I've seen flow launcher recommended but haven't personally tried it out yet
        hackrnusr 4y ago
        Thanks for the suggestion. Probably worth benchmarking against fzf/ripgrep when I can find the time.
      - kid64 4y ago
        There's this, which I haven't tried: https://github.com/ChrisS85/FastFileSearch https://github.com/ChrisS85/FastFileSearch SwiftSearch is excellent and uses the same tech: https://sourceforge.net/projects/swiftsearch/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/swiftsearch/
    - yonz 4y ago
      So why do the stock implementations suck?

bravetraveler 4y ago

mlocate/plocate (for locate and updatedb) are also nice Even if the db is not up to date, it's likely faster to update/search than rely on find I find simple searches by file name useful, but that's also because I'm fairly diligent to keep my filesystems organized The launcher called Albert is helpful as a sort of Spotlight stand-in with Linux (maybe elsewhere?). It does math, runs things, and can have things like a dictionary added. I believe it can also search

bravetraveler 4y ago
Lost my ability to edit, but here's a link to Albert: https://albertlauncher.github.io/ https://albertlauncher.github.io/ The demonstrations there confirm searching... and way more than I can do justice here
- abdullahkhalids 4y ago
  Albert is pretty good. I also catfish https://launchpad.net/catfish-search https://launchpad.net/catfish-search which is excellent. Also can search within text files.
  - yonz 4y ago
    Are either of you concerned about giving permissions to almost everything? I think that was why I uninstalled Albert.
    - abdullahkhalids 4y ago
      I am not sure what special permissions you are talking about that Albert gets? Just like any other software, it can do whatever the user can do. As far as I understand it doesn't "phone home" or anything with my data. And doesn't really delete or move files in any way.
    - bravetraveler 4y ago
      A bit, I'll admit I haven't audited it as much as I should -- are you aware of anything in particular? I install it through the Fedora repositories and only use the bundled extensions, so I don't worry too much about it