Desktop File Search Tools

Users compare built-in OS search features like Windows Start Menu and macOS Spotlight, complaining about their limitations and recommending faster alternatives such as Everything, Alfred, Fluent Search, and Listary.

➡️ Stable 0.5x Other
4,136
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#7126
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

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Keywords

Box.com AFP CPU apple.com F3 fluentsearch.net alfredapp.com FluentSearch StackExchange voidtools.com search spotlight windows alfred files macos searches indexing mac tool

Sample Comments

Dma54rhs Feb 11, 2021 View on HN

Why does this tool look inside the files while start menu search can't even handle simple fuzzy search? When I writes 'note' it does not find 'SinpleNote' which is insane. I refuse to believe that this is some power user feature, might as well disable search if all the people are so dumb that they can't learn how to use tools and ways that make us more productive.

sojournerc Mar 20, 2019 View on HN

you might like this - https://www.alfredapp.com/ - replaces spotlight, is faster, and fuzzy search seems better

drumttocs8 Nov 22, 2017 View on HN

I just use Everything to search. It's great.

pletnes Sep 25, 2022 View on HN

Macos’ spotlight can do this AFAIK.

bundie Apr 3, 2023 View on HN

I use a program called Everything. It's much faster.

01kb May 24, 2016 View on HN

I've used this, it is pretty fast comparing windows search. Any idea on how it differs from windows search?

curt15 Apr 18, 2019 View on HN

Equivalent of MacOS's spotlight

eviks Feb 28, 2025 View on HN

This just tells me you've never used they only file search dream - Everything search, unfortunately Windows only. Spotlight has never come close to that

inatreecrown2 Mar 28, 2025 View on HN

"everything" app on windows works well for me for file search. Incredibly fast.

toolslive May 9, 2016 View on HN

Spotlight can do the same thing, no ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_%28software%29