Astro Hacker News - Everything – Locate files and folders by name instantly

wild_pointer |next [-]

* The tool is truly amazing. Both for simple usage, and the advanced queries that it accepts. Very powerful, like a command line tool.

* As another comment says, v1.5 alpha has many advantages. Despite the alpha label, I find it to be very stable.

* Several software integrations exist: https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6326, I mostly like being able to see folder sizes instantly in explorer. I used xplorer2 in the past, which has a plugin, but I went back to native explorer, which has a Windhawk mod, feels like what Microsoft should have done: https://windhawk.net/mods/explorer-details-better-file-sizes

OkGoDoIt |root |parent [-]

Everything about this feels like what Microsoft should have done. It’s absolutely amazing to me that search is so broken in Windows and yet a free third-party tool can instantly find any file anywhere.

tom_ |next |previous [-]

I used this a lot when I was doing Windows stuff professionally, and I always really liked it.

The command line interface is good too: supply file spec that you'd type in to the GUI, and it'll print a list of matching files to stdout, one per line. Very easy to work with. I cobbled together a bit of Python stuff so that any time I was putting together a tool that needed to search for files, it could find the Everything command line tool if present, and use that instead of os.walk and the like, for a useful speedup.

(If nothing else, "es PATTERN" (to instantly find any name matching PATTERN anywhere on the system) is less typing than "find FOLDER -iname 'PATTERN'", and finishes more quickly. And compared to using locate, there's less chance of the database being out of date.)

hermitcrab |next |previous [-]

I've been using this tool for a while. It is incredibly useful. Kudos to the developer(s).

The real question is: why is the default Windows search so terrible? Did Microsoft make it useless on purpose?

Akronymus |root |parent |next [-]

Because the default windows search actually iterates every folder/subfolder, rather than using the global file table, which "everything" uses

randomlurking |root |parent [-]

I think it also searches inside documents by default.

hyperhopper |root |parent |previous [-]

It now seems to serve the purpose of funneling users into edge, AI products, or serving ads.

dietr1ch |root |parent [-]

It's been bad since early 2000s though

idw |next |previous [-]

Saw this mentioned in a comment recently, I just downloaded, installed and used it to find a file while Windows Search was still saying 'Working on it...'. So I thought others might like to know.
Previously on HN a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41337268 and probably other times

Thank you, whoever you were!

Lammy |next |previous [-]

I'm running the 1.5 Alpha for many of the reasons listed on its page: https://www.voidtools.com/everything-1.5a/ (especially Dark Mode and support for Properties/Tags/xattr/ADS/XMP)

e: also available in WinGet as `voidtools.Everything.Alpha` https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs/tree/master/manifes...

HumanOstrich |next |previous [-]

I used this for a while. What I don't like is that it updates its database by creating an entirely new copy and then deleting/renaming. For me that meant a several-hundred-MB file was being unnecessarily rewritten on a regular basis. It's a rather excessive waste of resources and not a polite thing to do when a lot of people have SSDs now.

I uninstalled it for that reason.

Scene_Cast2 |next |previous [-]

WizTree uses a similar idea - load the file system indices and works almost instantly.

rynn |next |previous [-]

Amazing utility that just works. Windows version of ‘locate’

IIRC it loads the FS index into memory and queries directly off of it. If a simple metadata search is enough for you I don’t think you can do better

patapong |next |previous [-]

This tool has completely changed the way I work with files - I no longer need to remember where they are, just a part of the name. Coincidentally, this means my files are better organized, since I know I can always just jump straight there instead of having to think about the folder structure.

I use it so often that I put it in the search bar, so that I can open it with Win + 1.

sudopsuedo |root |parent [-]

You may find FlowLauncher useful too: https://github.com/Flow-Launcher/Flow.Launcher

It can be configured to use an existing Voidtools Everything install in its settings, so a universal launcher can double as the everything searchbar

patapong |root |parent [-]

Huh, looks cool! Thank you for sharing, will check it out.

ctoth |next |previous [-]

Everything is amazing. Even better if you set a shortcut key (I use ctrl+shift+/) and it's just so fast. You can even query (I just recently learned this) like:

*.txt size:>1024kb

spapas82 |next |previous [-]

This is the first thing i install on windows for like 10 years. Then i set up Ctrl+alt+s to toggle the everything window.

Jolliness7501 |next |previous [-]

This is most often used tool in my daily work.

I work on win11. I don't use native search because it sucks and is slow as tar drip experiment.

Onedrive/sharepoint files content search at least works at all but only in web version. Still slow as hell, unreliable, ui/ux is crap.

With Everything I search >500k real files/folders + >300k fake files in milliseconds.

nabilsaikaly |next |previous [-]

Do you think future devs on this tool can use a new fast method to find content within files?

Lammy |root |parent [-]

1.5 Alpha kind of halfway does this: https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9793

Halfway because it is fast, but it's fast because it keeps the index entirely within RAM and thus you can't yet throw an arbitrarily-large disk of stuff at it to content-index.

loufe |next |previous [-]

This tool is legitimately one of the best utilities I've ever used. I've got my entire corporate branch using it.

It's a shame Microsoft can't figure their shit out and get a high quality native search figured out.

pjs_ |next |previous [-]

Literally the only good piece of software left on windows. Masterpiece

Lammy |root |parent [-]

And File Pilot :) https://filepilot.tech/ (t. FP Pro license holder)

atmanactive |root |parent [-]

I prefer XYPlorer.

Lammy |root |parent [-]

I do like XYplorer as well and have a license for it too, but its startup time is just so slooooow that I can't reach for it like I reach for File Pilot.

Now written in twinBASIC for 64-bit support! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42637089

atmanactive |root |parent [-]

I have it in my startup. No time wasted to open its window.

bomewish |next |previous [-]

Best thing about windows and biggest thing I miss. Have never been able to find equivalent for Mac — stuff that comes close but really not quite the magic of Everything. Same w Total Commander. Sad!

porker |root |parent |next [-]

Cardinal: Fastest and most accurate file search app for macOS. https://github.com/cardisoft/cardinal

It's slower to start-up than Everything but just as useful once running.

There are a few Mac oddities like OneDrive files appearing twice because macOS is convinced they exist in two locations, but that's a minor annoyance.

Y_Y |root |parent |next |previous [-]

As sibling notes, you can use locate just like the patriarchs (once you do some osx-specific fiddling)

https://egeek.me/2020/04/18/enabling-locate-on-osx/

Groxx |root |parent |previous [-]

It's not a gui, but in case you hadn't heard of it before: unixes usually have a `locate` command that'll do ~instant file/folder name searches. The index is usually rebuilt via a cron job though, it's not always up to date like Windows can do.

nabilsaikaly |next |previous [-]

How does it handle files with long paths? Windows had limitations on that…

jonnypotty |next |previous [-]

Love this program. .this plus filepilot makes windows almost usable

treelover |next |previous [-]

Compliments to the chef

AndrewKemendo |next |previous [-]

I used this for years

It is a HUGE memory hog so buyer beware

brian_herman |next |previous [-]

I love this I use it all the time.

UltraSane |next |previous [-]

This is one of the first things I install on a new Win OS install. Combined with good tagging in file names it makes finding things so fast. It is absurd Windows doesn't have this built in since it is a simple index that leverages NTFS file table.

rsamtravis |previous [-]

HOLY SHIT that is fast. Thank you!