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"Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

voidtools.com

21–30 of 103 posts

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#21

If you've never used the HTTP server, you're doing yourself a disservice. It creates a locally hosted web page that you can use to share with everyone on the network a fast file search client. Highly recommended! Throw in an nginx reverse proxy for https support and you are off to the races.

This is advice meant for server systems, I imagine?

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#22
post #10

It's funny: I cannot install Everything on my work computer, despite the fact that my productivity would easily be 3000% higher with it.

Not sure what your limitations are, but it is possible to run everything in portable mode. You just won't have the background service to maintain the index.

My work had software that disables any execution of nonwhitelisted binaries.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#23
post #10

It's funny: I cannot install Everything on my work computer, despite the fact that my productivity would easily be 3000% higher with it.

Not sure what your limitations are, but it is possible to run everything in portable mode. You just won't have the background service to maintain the index.

some endpoint protection services will block anything not signed by a trusted signature or that doesn't match an allow-list of known-good file hashes

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#24

Microsoft should buy them out and add bing to get a bang for the buck. Building functional software as a ex tortion tool for intentionally dysfunctional ecosystems. 2024..

When I was at Microsoft I already knew the answer but asked around - just to be sure - and the reason is…. *drumroll* …It bypasses NTFS ACLs (because it works by indexing the raw MFT)

Microsoft sells Windows as secure/securable OS: filesystem permissions must be enforced (of course, FS ACLs are a huge part of the reason why Windows’ files-on-disk UX isn’t the best).

Yes, Microsoft could still buy it and then redistribute it as a power-toy strictly for single-user computers, but why would they do that? There’s no secret-sauce in Everything.exe - a summer intern could recreate it in a couple of weeks. Oh, and don’t forget the support costs from people who didn’t read the README and installed it on a multiuser machine and can now see the very non-Elizabethan-era file names inside innocent little Timmy’s My Documents\Homework\English\Shakespeare\ directory.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#25
I've used Everything for as long as I can remember, and it has completely spoiled me on search/launcher functionality. Perfect UI, perfect results ordering (no cute prediction about what you might want), and, of course, truly instant results and a truly live index - it will find files created one millisecond ago.

I also use Launchy specifically for launching programs. Same instant results, though not live-indexed.

Which makes me question every single time I use the Windows default search box: How? How is one of the most fundamental features of the biggest software platform in history, made by one of the biggest companies in history, after decades, still not even close to as good as multiple basic indie replacements?

To me, when I think about how hopelessly bad popular software is (or becomes), this is the representative little example that comes to mind.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#26

Microsoft should buy them out and add bing to get a bang for the buck. Building functional software as a ex tortion tool for intentionally dysfunctional ecosystems. 2024..

When I was at Microsoft I already knew the answer but asked around - just to be sure - and the reason is…. *drumroll* …It bypasses NTFS ACLs (because it works by indexing the raw MFT) Microsoft sells Windows as secure/securable OS: filesystem permissions must be enforced (of course, FS ACLs are a huge part of the reason why Windows’ files-on-disk UX isn’t the best). Yes, Microsoft could still buy it and then redistri…

This seems like a weak excuse, the same problem exists on UNIX, but slocate solves it well enough. The slocate solution is to build the index and record permission and ownership, then it can restrict output to entries you have permission to see at query time.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#27
I don't know much about filesystems, but I have heard it said (including at least one comment in this thread) that only NTFS enables the live indexing of Everything, and that there is not an equal tool on Mac because of this. Can anybody corroborate or give details about why? APFS is a very recent filesystem, and it was designed by Apple - so if this capability really is absent, presumably that's on purpose, as a tradeoff for something.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#28
post #20

Is there a macOS app that works like this? Alfred has this functionality, but sometimes it fails to find files.

Doesn’t work as insanely quickly as voidtools’ Everything, but I use Thomas Tempelmann’s Find Any File as my Everything replacement on macOS:

https://findanyfile.app/

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#29
post #19
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what your limitations are, but it is possible to run everything in portable mode. You just won't have the background service to maintain the index.

How does it maintain the index then? Isn't using the Windows indexing service the reason it works so fast?

It reads the MFT. Then it stores its own index in a file called 'everything.db' which I am pretty sure is a sqlite file.

I don't think the windows indexing service is utilized at all.

Re: "Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

#30
post #20

Is there a macOS app that works like this? Alfred has this functionality, but sometimes it fails to find files.

Alfred does use its own index, instead of Spotlight’s, so it is certainly miles faster than macOS’s built in search; make sure to check what directories are being searched over in settings.
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