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Comment by yread | Hacker News Reader

What there are still people who don't install Voidtools' Everything on all Windows PCs and assign it a global shortcut? Since I have it I don't even bother organizing stuff

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This is the first time I've heard of it.

https://www.voidtools.com/

That plus Microsoft PoweToys (which inexplicably isn’t installed by default) are the only things that make Windows useable to me.

It's amazing. It does what Google Desktop tried and failed to do on Windows XP. And it's blazingly fast by reading NTFS directly instead of using the Windows API. (OK, back then needing 1GB of RAM was pretty much impossible.)

Does Everything search file contents? I've only used Everything for searching filenames (and it is fantastic for that). Google Desktop's sweet spot was searching within files.

The stable version cannot. 1.5 Alpha can do it. It can also index properties (as in resolution, author, song/movie length, etc.)

So far I would recommend that one, it has tons of new features (including a change journal that shows renames, moves and deletes in real time) and I didn't experience a single bug yet. And it is even faster.

https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9787#new

Wow. I had no idea such a significant capability expansion was in the works!

Does anyone know of a similar tool for macOS? I'd gotten really comfortable with a Ctrl+Alt+S binding on Windows for Everything and miss it these days on macOS.

Spotlight?

There's HoudahSpot [1] for something a little more advanced. Third party launchers like Alfred [2] can also perform file searches.

[1] https://www.houdah.com/houdahSpot/

[2] https://www.alfredapp.com/

It's nowhere near as fast as Everything on Windows, but Find Any File[0] aka FAF is a lifesaver for me and I consider it "indispensable" on macOS.

[1] https://findanyfile.app

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