Everything is a long standing desktop search program for Microsoft Windows devices that is both powerful and very fast.
Our first review of Everything dates back to 2008, and the most recent one took a look at the first beta in 2013 that introduced 64-bit support in Everything.
Everything is a search program for Windows that uses fast indexing to display files and folders to the user. The initial indexing is very fast, and should complete in less than a minute if a lot of files are on the system. The author states that indexing of a fresh Windows 10 installation takes about 1 second to complete.
The name Everything comes from the program's display of data. Unlike Windows Search, which displays matching files and folders based on a user's input, Everything displays all files and folders initially, and filters them based on the user's input.
Everything 1.4 is the most recent major version of the search program. It was released back in November 2015, and introduced several new features to the application (and was updated several times subsequently). The developer released several updates to address issues for the most part in the program. The last update dates back to February 2019 at the time of writing.
The latest version of Everything is offered as a 32-bit and 64-bit portable version, and as a setup version. The program is compatible with all versions of Windows starting with Windows XP, and can run under user or administrative accounts. If run under a user account, Everything either needs to be run as administrator or as a service for NTFS indexing to work.
The software creates indexes of all fixed volumes automatically. You can add removable volumes to the indexing process under Options > Indexes > NTFS (or ReFS if that file system is used).
The core functionality of the search program has not changed. The start of Everything is very fast, and a list of all folders and files is displayed on start.
The table lists file and folder names, full path information, the last modification date, and for files the file size.
Filters are applied as soon as you start typing. This process is instant, and there is no lag on your system as Everything filters files and folders based on your input.
One of the greatest strengths of Everything, besides that it is blazing fast, is that it offers an impressive set of features and customization options. You can use content filters for instance, run pretty much any command or feature using the keyboard, and even run the program from the command line.
Everything 1.4 was a major update of the search program. The new version introduced several important features to the application:
Everything 1.3 was the last major release prior to the release of Everything 1.4 that introduced important features and improvements to the search program.
Windows is home to plenty of search programs. You can check out our guide on the best search programs for a list of them if you are interested.
Everything is a great program, and there is little that one can criticize as it is well designed, feature rich, but still puts users in control in regards to its feature set.
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Great software, use it almost daily.
I really like Everything, I use it every day too. Recently, I found a tool, AnyTXT Searcher, which is a simple and practical desktop text search tool. If you like Everything, you will like it.
@ Dong
Would you have a link for it ? I did a search, but could not find it.
@Clairvaux
Here it is. https://sourceforge.net/projects/anytxt/
Thank you, I will check it.
I installed Any TXT Searcher, and it does not even launch. Not from the shortcut, not from the executable. What’s that piece of junk ?
It works fine for me… you can re-download and try again, or check md5 for the installer package.
It works fine for me… you can re-download and try again, or check md5 for the installer package.
Does this program only search/index your pc or does this extend to networked or mapped drives?
May also index network folder or drives.
One of the best programs ever & it’s free. The bookmarks feature make it the best !
Examples
bitrate:>192kbps looks for music files greater than 192
size:>50mb dupe: duplicate files bigger thn 50 meg
“F:\”|”G:\” .ini|.db|*default.txt checks my F: G: drives for desktop.ini thumbs.db files plus any files called default txt
There are many other variations you can use.
I’ve had this installed for a couple of months, it’s defintely very useful.
Worth to mention is that Total Commander integrates well with Everything – you can replace its internal file search with a query to Everything – works lightning fast.
I’m using it for 6 years and I’m really satisfied – works way better than system search/indexer; eats just small portion of resources and it’s really responsive. It’s a great piece of software – worth recommending
There are similar tools for linux distros: Recoll and FSearch
Chris I have modified the sentence to reflect that.
Nearly every day, often many times, I have to locate something. Searching manually or with the builtin search is frustratingly slow.
This program should be on every Windows PC.
People who don’t have it really don’t know what they are missing.
My must have program. I don’t loose minutes waiting for search to finish.
;)
from changes.txt: Wednesday, 7 June 2017: Version 1.4.1.877
Looks like there is a new stable version released :D. Your review is just-in-time…
This is my go-to search tool on every PC I own.. Very useful!
Great program, however it lacks just that bit of extra user interface that would make it conveniently non-geeky for me. It’s such an indispensable add-on to Windows because Windows search is so broken. If I were Microsoft, I would put a few dozen million dollars on the table to buy it off, like it did with Russinovich, and stop the shame. But MS is busy pulling things on the cloud, so why bother ?
A small correction: Everything 1.4 was not released in Nov 2015, but just this week (well, 1.4.1.877). It was the BETA of 1.4 which has been out in various non-final versions ever since 2015 (September).
A MUST-HAVE software on PC for daily uses.
While I do find it indispensable, I’m wondering if there are other desktop search engines that are worth looking at.
Any recommendations?
If you want to search inside files, too, have a look at File Locator (powerful free version, even more powerful and quite expensive pro version), and at File Seek (free or cheap).
I recommend Anytxt, which is fast, supports a lot of file formats. It is Everything’s brother. If you like Everything, you will like it. https://sourceforge.net/projects/anytxt/
Few things are truly free, how does “Everything” make money?
You can donate to the project.
Is it safe to use this, even on an SSD?
Yes it is.
On a side note, this program is epic! Can’t believe I’ve been using terrible Windows search all these years. Just hope my SSD doesn’t get too many writes from this.
ANYtxt 1.0 beta was updated 2 days ago per https://sourceforge.net/projects/anytxt/ .
I tried SpyHunter 5. It said I had 2 .xpi that were infected. It wanted me to pay to remove them. I searched for the bad .xpis. It allowed me to delete them free. I rescanned with SpyHunter. They were gone. :)