PRODUCTIVITY
Everything: How to Save a Ton of Time With a Desktop Search Engine
I’ve been using this constantly every day for more than 10 years
[Windows only]
Today, I would like to introduce you to one of my favorite time-saving tools. It’s called “everything” and I’ve been using it for more than 10 years.
It does only one thing but it does it incredibly well: searching files on your local disks. The results are almost instant, which will save you a ton of time.
Let’s jump in…
That damn Windows Explorer
I’m having a love/hate relationship with Windows Explorer.
When I use my desktop, I use Windows Explorer all the time. It’s one of the few Windows tools that did not change much over the years. So I know most of the shortcuts, such as:
- Opening a new windows explorer (windows+E)
- Renaming a file (F2)
- Getting to the parent folder (Alt+Up)
- Etc.
However, I hate how slow it can sometimes be, especially when searching for files. Depending on which folder you choose for your search, it can take ages to find a file. Sometimes it even hangs! And the progress bar is not that accurate, so you don’t know how long you have to wait.
Everything is ultrafast
Enter “Everything” by Voidtools. It’s a desktop search engine that lets you find a file almost instantly. Best of all: this desktop search engine is completely free!
When I found this utility, I could not believe I didn’t know it earlier. My co-workers were stunned too. After introducing it to one of my colleagues, word-of-mouth spread like fire. In a matter of weeks, everybody adopted it at work.
Search options
Everything is a very simple utility. You open it and it just works. Like Google, the interface is dead simple: just a search bar and the results:
However, one place where you want to spend some time is the “Search” menu. On the search menu, you can choose to match not only the name of the file but also the path. Most of the time, I choose to match the path because it gives you richer results. But you can tweak it according to your research.
Another option I like is to search using regex. Regular expressions allow you to search using patterns.
I’m not going to give you a regular expression course here because that’s an advanced skill.
But here are a couple of examples so that you know the possibilities:
- gr(a|e)y : will search both for “grey” and “gray”
- go*gle : will search for ggle, gogle, google, etc. (basically any number of “o” characters)
- go+gle : will search for gogle, google, etc. (this time, there must be at list one “o” character)
- ^dog: will search for anything that starts with dog
- dog$ : will search for anything that ends with dog
- ^dog$ : will search for the dog word exactly
If you need help on this feature, you have a list of all available regex options in the menu “Help” > “Regex syntax”
Privacy concerns
Under the hood, the Everything’s search engine scans every file from your hard disks. The index is updated constantly using a Windows service.
The problem is that if you often use your computer publicly, you might accidentally reveal some personal files that you want to keep private.
To solve this problem, go to the menu “Tools” / “Options”. Then you click on “Indexes” / “Exclude”. And you can exclude a couple of folders you don’t want to get indexed by the software.
For example, some personal pictures:
—
I hope you enjoyed his overview of Everything. As I said, it’s a huge time-saving app, and I recommend it if you are using Windows.
There are also a couple of search options that help you tweak your searches. And you can exclude some folders if you don’t want them to show up in the search results.
Here’s the direct URL where you can download it:
>> Everything by Voidtools <<
Enjoy!
On February 1st, 2022, I embarked on a 100 days writing challenge. This is post number 98.
