Windows has a search feature that can help you find the file or folder you want. However, you don't realize how slow and incompetent this feature is until you urgently need a file and search for it, then wait for the search to complete and the results to appear. This becomes even more difficult when you have to search for something in a large amount of data.
Searching on Windows shouldn't be frustrating. Everything comes into play. It is a tool designed to make searching faster and more efficient. Installing and using it is pretty straightforward, but first let's understand what it is and what features it offers.
Everything is a simple yet powerful third-party Windows tool designed specifically to make your searches smoother. It efficiently indexes every file and folder on your entire drive to display search results instantly. But what makes it faster than Windows' standard search?
While the native Windows search feature indexes file names along with their contents, the Everything tool indexes only file and folder names, making the search process faster. In addition, Everything continuously tracks system changes such as newly added, deleted or renamed files and more and updates the indexes almost instantly. Windows, on the other hand, performs reindexing at regular intervals rather than in real time.
Everything is not only super fast, but also lightweight and uses few system resources despite running in the background. It has an intuitive interface that makes it useful for users of all experience levels. There is also a portable version that you can carry around on your USB storage device and use on any Windows PC. By default, the search results also show the hidden files and folders, which you can exclude in the settings.
How to install and configure the Everything app on Windows
Download and install everything
Installing the Everything app and getting it ready for your first use is a breeze. Here's how.
- Open your browser and visit the official download website of the Everything tool.
- On the download page, select the installation type that matches your system configuration or the portable version ZIP file.
- Once the installer is downloaded, run it, review the agreements and follow the on-screen instructions to successfully install the program.
- In the last step, check the Execute all and click on the Finish Button.
- Once the app is launched, it only takes a few seconds for all files and folders on your system to be automatically indexed in its database.
Configure Everything settings
After indexing is complete, you can start using the tool right away. But before that, you can configure some settings to get the best results from the app. This will also give you more control over the app. Follow these steps.
All of the following settings are optional and do not affect how the tool actually works. You can skip them and use the tool directly if you want.
- In the Everything app window, click the Tools section in the top menu and select Options.
- First, configure the Generally Settings such as UI elements, app home area, keyboard shortcuts and more.
- Then switch to Story on the left side and enable search history to record your searches.
- Then switch to Indices to enable some index options, such as Size of the index folder, Index creation date, Index access dateand more. You can also disable any default option that you do not prefer. There is also a Force rebuild Button to forcibly rebuild the index.
- Under the Indices switch to Exclude Subsection. You can specify folders and files that you want to exclude from the overall index. There is an option to exclude hidden files and folders.
- To automatically add a USB removable storage device to the index, switch to the NTFS Subsection in the Indexes section and activate the Automatically mount new removable storage devices Option.
- After you have made all relevant changes, click Apply And OK to exit the options window.
How to use the Everything app to search on Windows
After successfully installing and configuring the settings, you can open and use the Everything tool. Here are the different search options.
Search for a file or folder in the usual way
Here's how you use the Everything app most often. Just type the file or folder name you want in the search box and the tool will instantly display all related results. The more precisely you type the name, the more specific the result will be.
Search for a file or folder in a specific location
If you want to limit your search to a specific hard drive partition or folder, you can easily do so by adding the location of that partition or folder. For example, if you want to search for “EA Sports Cricket” in A: Drive, type E: EA Sports Cricket in the search field.
If you want to search for “EA Sports Cricket” specifically in the Cricket_2007 folder of E, Drive, type E:\Cricket_2007 EA Sports Cricket Query.
Search for a file type
If you are looking for a specific file type, such as DOCS, PDF, CSV, or HTML, you can limit Everything's search results to that file type. Type *FILE TYPE for this purpose. For example, by using *csv All files with the extension .csv are listed in the search field.
This search function allows you to determine the number of certain file types present on your system. For example, use
*pdf
lists all PDF files on your device and at the bottom of the app window you can see the exact total number of PDF files present.
Using Boolean operators
You can use Boolean operators in your search query to make your search results even more specific and advanced.
- The AND is the default Boolean operator in the Everything app. So, for example, if you want to search for files or folders that cricket And 07just use the Cricket 07 Query. The Space between the terms acts as an AND operator and lists all elements that contain both terms.
- To apply the OR operator, use the | (vbar) between the two terms. For example Cricket | 07 lists all articles whose name contains either “Cricket” or “07”.
- To exclude a specific term from the search results, you can use the Boolean operator NOT (!) before the term. For example, if you want to search for things without the term cricket, enter !Cricket in the search field.
Use placeholders
If you do not remember the exact file name, but only the first and last character or some characters in between, wildcards are useful. For example, if you a*z Query, all files and directories that start with a and ending with z are listed.
The situation is similar if you a*m*z Query will display all elements that contain a, m and z in the name in chronological order. When searching for *z lists all elements ends with z, and search for A* shows the result with all entries starting with a.
In addition, if you want an even more specific result with article names that contain a certain number of characters, you can use ? in the query, where the ? serves as a placeholder for any character you have in mind. For example, if you search for at displays all files and directories with exactly three characters that start with a and end with t.
search for A??? lists all elements with four characters that begin with a. Similarly, ??? displays all entries with four characters that begin with z.
Include spaces in the search
If you are looking for a file or folder name that contains spaces, simply enclose the entire name in double quotes. For example: “amazon music” ensures that Everything looks for that exact phrase instead of interpreting it as individual words.
While searching for files and folders on Everything, you can use the search menu to access advanced options, including adding filters, case sensitivity, whole word matching, path matching, and using specific file types (document, audio, executable, folder, etc.).
Apart from that, Everything offers a lot more. For a complete list of supported syntax, see
Help > Search syntax.
Improve your search on Windows with Everything
Everything is literally a savior for Windows users who deal with large amounts of files or often need to find documents quickly. Once you start using Everything, you will wonder how you ever got along with the default Windows search. Its lightning-fast search speed and wide range of search features while using minimal system resources make it one of the best third-party tools that you should definitely install on your Windows PC.