Everything – My Top Desktop Search Tool
photo credit: Martini Captures
As a programmer with a very poor memory and a large code base I struggle with the task of finding the source files I need. Visual Studio lacks a decent file searching function, in the past this has led me to scouring through directories that contain hundreds of files to desperately trying find what I need. This isn’t a pleasant task as you can imagine. Windows desktop search is awful as it seems slow and inaccurate even on a powerful machine. I’ve tried Google Desktop search in the past, but it’s a bit of a resource hog and since I’m running 64bit Vista it’s not even supported on my computer.
Cue, Everything from VoidTools. This tiny little program is incredibly powerful, is somehow able to create its index almost instantly after install and works on all versions of Windows, including Vista 64. I’ve been using it for a few weeks and it has fitted in seamlessly with my workflow. Need a file, hit the hot key, type a partial filename, hit enter and it’s there in my editor. No more scratching my head trying to remember where that file I looked at 5 years ago is hiding. Oh and did I mention it’s completely free so competes well with Google on price.
This tool is well recommended for anyone who regularly has to search for files by filename. Download it now from the VoidTools website.
October 13, 2008 7:34 pm 
I’m currently an X1 user – does “Everything” compete with X1 on the indexing of Outlook PST’s?
Google Desktop is banned at work – there are certain “security implications” of it caching stuff to it’s servers. I know you can turn of those features, but the corporate security boys aren’t happy about the wider population (i.e. not the techies!) installing it, and so have issued a complete ban
X1 is the closest thing to the job!
Same here. Although I think the security implications are a misconception, I don’t believe Google caches anything about your desktop to their servers, why would they? Corporate IT hate anything that is free.
I’ve never used X1, but my search requirements are fairly minimal.
Everything doesn’t search the contents of files, it simply find files by name. This is perfect for me as I’m using it navigate a huge visual studio solution. For the really clever searching stuff I’d probably use Google Desktop (If it worked on my PC), of coarse I can always switch to my Mac and use Spotlight search in a pinch.
I think it does, certainly before they banned it I saw things in my searches at home and work that should not have been seen outside!