File Search

Searches your disk for files by name or content. Looks inside PDF, Word, Excel, EPUB. Also sees inside ZIP/RAR archives.

What it does

Use this to find a forgotten PDF in old folders, locate where a function is defined in a code project, find a specific file inside a backup archive, or grep for a phrase across Word documents.

How to use

Four tabs:

Quick

  1. Add the folder roots to search.
  2. Type the filename pattern (substring, glob or regex).
  3. Results update live.

Advanced

Filter by date range, size, extension, content match.

Inside Archives

Searches inside ZIP, TAR, 7Z archives. See into them without extracting.

Saved

Save searches you use often and re-run them.

Search methods

  • Substring: Plain text matching in the filename.
  • Glob: Wildcards like *.pdf or report_*.xlsx.
  • Regex: Patterns like \d{4}_report.
  • Fuzzy: Forgiving of typos.

Content search

Looks inside files, not just filenames:

  • PDF, DOCX, XLSX, EPUB
  • TXT, code files
  • 10 MB max per file by default (configurable)

Auto-excluded folders

node_modules, .git, AppData, $RECYCLE.BIN and 24 others are skipped by default. You can edit the list.

Examples

Find an old contract PDF: Quick tab, root Documents, search contract*.pdf, results appear instantly.

Find a function in a code project: Advanced tab, root project folder, content search def my_function, filetype .py.

Find a file inside a ZIP: Inside Archives tab, root backup folder, search *.docx. Word files inside ZIPs show up.

Files changed in a date range: Advanced tab, date filter last 7 days, run.

Watch out

  • Content search is slow on big files. The 10 MB limit means bigger files are skipped.
  • Very large disks (TB+) take hours on the first scan, saved searches are faster.
  • Fuzzy search is slow, be careful on huge folders.
  • Search results are not stored on disk, opening hits opens the actual file.
  • Protected system folders may be off-limits.

License

Free tier has a monthly search cap. Office and Ultimate plans remove it.