Everything – Instant search for files and folders

Everything is a free program to instantly search for files and folders by their names on your computer. All users are constantly looking for the necessary files or folders on their PCs, sometimes experiencing some difficulties.

Usually, two search options are used: in the first option, the user knows approximately where to look for the file, so he finds it on his own, in the second option, a special program or system search is used to search for the file.

The Windows operating system has a built-in search with which you can find the desired file, folder or application. However, Windows search looks for information only on the system drive, which is not very convenient in many cases.

If you constantly have difficulty finding files on your computer, I recommend that you put things in order there by distributing files and folders according to certain criteria: by types, disks, remove duplicates, etc.

Everything File Finder

Due to the nature of Windows search, it makes sense to use a search service from a third-party program, such as using a file manager search. A good option would be to use a specialized file search program Everything, which is designed to quickly search for information located on computer disks.

A distinctive feature of the program Everything is almost instantaneous search with a display of results, using automatic indexing.

Right after the first launch, Everything automatically creates an index of names for each file and folder in NTFS and ReFS file systems. By default, all volumes (disks) with supported file systems are indexed. The collected information is stored in a special cache file, which makes Everything run astonishingly fast.

After indexing is completed, at the next launch of the application, the program constantly updates its index, adds the changes that have occurred to the index, extracting them from the NTFS and USN index logs. Therefore, the search for the necessary information is very fast.

Everything supports other file systems, but searching these file systems will no longer be as fast as NTFS and ReFS file systems.

The main features of the program Everything:

• Quick search for files and folders.
• Indexing sizes, dates, attributes.
• Advanced Search.
• Preview panel.
• Batch rename files.
• Content search.
• Search History Manager.
• Support for regular expressions.
• Export of search results.
• Support for filters, macros, bookmarking.
• Minimum consumption of computer resources.

The free program Everything runs on the Windows operating system in Russian. You can download the Everything program from the official website of the developer.

Two versions of the application are offered for downloading to a computer: for a normal installation and a portable version of the program. If you have a 64-bit version of Windows installed on your computer, select the 64-bit installer option or the Zip archive of the portable 64-bit version of the application.

Install the program on your computer, or run the portable version from a folder. Place the portable folder in a convenient location on your computer.

Instant search for files and folders in Everything

Everything must be run as an administrator for full functionality. The application itself will remind you of this in a special window.

Select the “Run as administrator” option. This is a more acceptable option, since if the Everything service is running, the service will constantly run in the background on the computer, consuming some of the resources.

The program is optimally configured by default. Everything settings can be accessed from the Tools → Preferences menu.

After the first launch, the program will spend some time indexing all disks connected to the computer. The Everything window will then display all found files and folders.

In this image, the indexed folders and files are displayed in the program window, by name (in this case, starting with the “!” Sign). Basically, folders with such names on my computer are located on an external hard drive (disk “M:”, NTFS file system). These are stocks of mini-games left over from the days when I was looking for and installing computer games for my kids (they are adults now).

Everything is very easy to use. Enter the word you want in the search field, and then get the result almost instantly. Results begin to appear as individual letters are entered into the search field. All extra elements are ignored.

I entered the word “best” in the search field, the program displayed all the files and folders on my computer that had the word “best” in their names.

Found files and folders are distributed in the program window according to certain parameters:

• Name – Displays folder names first, followed by file names. The first word in the list is the search word, located at the beginning of the file or folder name, and then when it comes as the second word, and so on. The name is case-sensitive, first capital letters, then lowercase.
• Path – the path to the file or folder on the computer.
• Size – Specifies the size of the found files.
• Modified Date – The date and time of the last change that was applied to the file or folder.

To open the desired file or folder, double-click on it with the left mouse button.

Data on a computer can be searched by file extension, such as audio files with a “.mp3” extension.

To fine-tune your search results, use the advanced search services. Enter the “Search” menu, select “Advanced search” in the context menu.

In the “Advanced Search” window, select more precise search criteria that are case-sensitive, whole words, diacritics. Make other settings, select a specific computer drive to search.

The contents of the files are not indexed, so searching through the contents of the file will take quite a long time.

Article Conclusions

Everything is a free program designed to quickly search for files and folders on your computer by their names. The application finds the necessary data located on the computer’s disks almost instantly, the Everything program will help the user save a lot of time.