Discussion Everything search - Great search replacement for Win10

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mindless1

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,052
1,442
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Does Fileseek build an index? That looks like a primary difference, that Everything's index database can become old if you don't leave it running (minimized to taskbar tray), or be waking up drives to scan for changes when you load it if not kept running in the background, but then when you search for something it is lightning fast to not have to search all volumes again, literally only takes milliseconds to display the results and I'm talking about results from over 20 volumes, over a network, removable devices, memory cards, DVDs, flash drives, etc. that aren't even plugged in.

I do have Everything on a system that it has ran on for a while, but I can't remember the syntax for certain things like searching for *all* duplicates. I mean I know where the file is that I put a list of these search modifiers in but I never did memorize them.

Everything did have some sort of bug that effected my use, something about losing the results on network shares and then rebuilding the index every few minutes regardless of what that interval was set to be in the program, but I reported that and they came out with a fixed version, maybe a year and a half ago.
 
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Chiefcrowe

Chiefcrowe

Diamond Member
Sep 15, 2008
5,046
177
116
Thanks for the post. I just started using it so I'm not a pro at Everything search yet.

It does seem like if you install the service, the indexing happens in the background even if the program isn't running.


mindless1 said:
Does Fileseek build an index? That looks like a primary difference, that Everything's index database can become old if you don't leave it running (minimized to taskbar tray), or be waking up drives to scan for changes when you load it if not kept running in the background, but then when you search for something it is lightning fast to not have to search all volumes again, literally only takes milliseconds to display the results and I'm talking about results from over 20 volumes, over a network, removable devices, memory cards, DVDs, flash drives, etc. that aren't even plugged in.

I do have Everything on a system that it has ran on for a while, but I can't remember the syntax for certain things like searching for *all* duplicates. I mean I know where the file is that I put a list of these search modifiers in but I never did memorize them.

Everything did have some sort of bug that effected my use, something about losing the results on network shares and then rebuilding the index every few minutes regardless of what that interval was set to be in the program, but I reported that and they came out with a fixed version, maybe a year and a half ago.
Click to expand...
 
mindless1

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,052
1,442
126
^ Could be, I never looked into that. When I click the window X to close it, it just minimizes to the taskbar tray and that system has plenty of memory so I don't mind the ~ 135MB it's taking.
 
V

Victorian Gray

Lifer
Nov 25, 2013
32,083
11,718
136
mindless1 said:
Does Fileseek build an index? That looks like a primary difference, that Everything's index database can become old if you don't leave it running (minimized to taskbar tray), or be waking up drives to scan for changes when you load it if not kept running in the background, but then when you search for something it is lightning fast to not have to search all volumes again, literally only takes milliseconds to display the results and I'm talking about results from over 20 volumes, over a network, removable devices, memory cards, DVDs, flash drives, etc. that aren't even plugged in.

I do have Everything on a system that it has ran on for a while, but I can't remember the syntax for certain things like searching for *all* duplicates. I mean I know where the file is that I put a list of these search modifiers in but I never did memorize them.

Everything did have some sort of bug that effected my use, something about losing the results on network shares and then rebuilding the index every few minutes regardless of what that interval was set to be in the program, but I reported that and they came out with a fixed version, maybe a year and a half ago.
Click to expand...


Re bolded:

From the FAQ

Does "Everything" miss changes made to the file system if it is not running?
No, "Everything" can be closed and restarted without missing changes made to the file system (even across system restarts).

"Everything" updates the database when it is started.

https://www.voidtools.com/faq/#how_long_will_it_take_to_index_my_files
 
mindless1

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,052
1,442
126
^ That's what I mean but I didn't mention the significance, that its index becomes old then if you have a ton of volumes it's set up to index and need it refreshed, then when you load it you have to wait for it to finish indexing, cannot do a search till that finishes, so instead of taking milliseconds, it takes quite a few seconds, including the time for every single HDD it scans, to spin up, before you can do a search.

That's probably near a minute for my use which is too long a wait. Having it happen when a system is off and then booted, doesn't matter as that particular system gets OS booted maybe twice a year. Maybe they've changed that in subsequent versions, being able to search the old index while it builds a new one, but I doubt it.

If someone is just running it on their one client system and it's just indexing a single SSD in that system that's not a big deal but with many volumes including HDDs across multiple network shares too, it takes long enough that I opted to just leave it running. Chiefcrowe mentioned there's a service but I'm not seeing any problems doing it the way I have, just leaving it running.
 
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Muse

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,478
8,077
136
Don't know how it competes with the others but for several years I've been using Agent Ransack Free for searches.

From that page: “If I were shipwrecked on a desert isle and could take only one software program with me, it would be Agent Ransack, hands down.”
 
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mindless1

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,052
1,442
126
^ I use both Everything and Agent Ransack, the latter mostly when I'm already at a folder with lots of files and just can't find what I'm looking for in it, so I only see hits for that folder by right clicking the folder to do the Agent Ransack search. Everything works for that too but then I have a lot more files to sort through, takes a few seconds longer.

Everything had been fine for me but recently it seems to not be updating the database on the schedule I set, showing old locations of files instead of new and phantom files that've been deleted. It also almost always fails to scan a USB3 external HDD across a network share. If I manually start a scan of that external HDD it works and keeps the data for it.
 
13Gigatons

13Gigatons

Diamond Member
Apr 19, 2005
7,461
500
126
Love Everything.....works super fast to build index and then find what you are looking for.
 
Muse

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,478
8,077
136
13Gigatons said:
Love Everything.....works super fast to build index and then find what you are looking for.
Click to expand...
I used Agent Ransack last night. Was really quick. I gave up on Windows' Search years ago, used to be OK with it but in more recent versions of Windows it was just driving me crazy, I never could figure out how to use it. Maybe it was me, but once I discovered Agent Ransack, I never looked back.
 
Berryracer

Berryracer

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2006
2,779
1
81
Chiefcrowe said:
Just tried a new search program that is much faster and seems a LOT better than the built in windows 10 search. Not sure why they can't do this....

It's worth checking out! (Now we need them to fix the broken search in Outlook 2016!!!)

https://www.voidtools.com/faq
Click to expand...
Been using Everything for a couple of years, the best search tool out there. Period. It finds anything instantly and doesn't even need the Windows Indexing service to do this
 
Muse

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,478
8,077
136
Question about these search utilities:

I'm doing a search right now. I know the answer is under:

W:\Data

That's a ton of data to search through.

But I also know the answer is under one of these:

W:\data\A
W:\data\B

Can I use one of these to do a simultaneous search of those two and their subdirectories, thus saving having to either search each individually or the humongous W:\data?

I always use Agent Ransack Free, which may support this, but if so, I don't know how to implement it.
 
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