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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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:
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.