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"Everything" is a filename search engine for Windows

voidtools.com

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

#71

Post by smusamashah »

happytoexplain wrote: post #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. Wh…

I read somewhere that windows search takes into account the security and other restrictions on the folders. That's why it's slow. Everything on the other hand will give you everything without caring if you have access to the file or not. Which makes sense because it's using file tables directly to give you results.

Everything + RipGrep is how i search files and file contents on windows.

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

#72

Post by EvanAnderson »

tonymet wrote: post #66

Windows search already has an index and query interface for filenames built in. Why reindex?

The part of Windows Search that derives from the old Index Server product is actually pretty cool, albeit it feels over-engineered. It has an extensibility API to allow new file types to be indexed. It supports culling search results based on the permissions granted to the indexed resourced for the querying user. It supports indexing other data sources besides filesystems. It has a client/server query API. It seems pretty cool.

It's also frustratingly under-documented and, at least in my experience, suffers from poor performance. The query language is a not-quite-SQL (reminds me of WQL from WMI) and queries return very slowly. I've tried to make analytic tools for file servers using it and when I do get results they're often incomplete and/or wrong.

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

#73

Post by zaptheimpaler »

happytoexplain wrote: post #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. Wh…

Not to worry, AI solves this.

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

#74

Post by mrmuagi »

One annoying thing I ran into a year or two ago is when Everything.exe is running, discord thinks it's the steam game called Everything. I had to rename the search Everything.exe to a different name to get around this.

Admittedly it's not voidtools fault, rather discords.

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

#75

Post by TeMPOraL »

danbruc wrote: post #38
beart wrote: post #5

Search in Windows is THE indicator of how poorly Microsoft has maintained their core operating system, IMO. What could be more significant over the last 20 years than "search", and where does there exist a worst implementation of it in a major piece of software? Everything really puts a spotlight on this with how simple and effective it is.

I agree that searching on Windows sucks but I guess there is a trade-off to be made. You can use very abstract APIs that will work for all kinds of file systems, whether a local disks, a DVD, a USB connected phone, or a network drive, but it will be slow and limited because you can only rely on the lowest common denominator. On the other end of the spectrum you can build highly specialized functionality that can be f…

Or, you build "highly specialized functionality" for multiple media / file systems, use them accordingly, and merge the results.

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

#77

Post by beart »

smusamashah wrote: post #71
happytoexplain wrote: post #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. Wh…

I read somewhere that windows search takes into account the security and other restrictions on the folders. That's why it's slow. Everything on the other hand will give you everything without caring if you have access to the file or not. Which makes sense because it's using file tables directly to give you results. Everything + RipGrep is how i search files and file contents on windows.

I suspect there's more going on. Why is the search index consuming multiple GBs? And why does that seem to grow unconstrained? I can only imagine what ancient code may live in that feature.

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

#80

Post by DecoPerson »

aragonite wrote: post #62

Note that while the default download is for the stable version (1.4), 1.5 alpha (which adds a lot of features) has been available since 2021 and very stable in my experience. https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9787

I’ve used Everything 1.5 and Everything Server 1.5 for our small business to help our employees find files on the SMB file share since about 2022. It has been very good. People don’t have to waste time doing deep folder hierarchies. They’ve settled on “DATE Rough description” folders with a bunch of documents inside relevant to that “task”. These task folders can be forgotten, but with good folder and file naming, are easy to stumble upon later using Everything when we need info on an old task/project/etc.

The new Microsoft 365 stuff is so shiny, but the poor integration with traditional SMB shares is incredibly frustrating. We now have two split areas of documents: SMB and “The Cloud”. Nothing they offer for SharePoint/OneDrive Business/Azure gives proper integration between old and new.

Even worse, the new documents are often silo’d into specific user’s personal OneDrive which is basically undiscoverable by default. The old workflow of choosing a place to save the document early kept documents visible and rapidly shared. Now someone could be drafting a document for days before others even see it. Or they could forget to ever move it from their personal space to a team/shared space.

sigh

I’m thinking I’ll code a simple tool that creates hyperlinks to SharePoint in SMB.

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