{"slug": "everything", "name": "Everything", "category": "search", "category_name": "Search", "description": "Windows desktop search utility that instantly finds files and folders by name, by voidtools.", "recommenders": 11, "commenters": 13, "warners": 1, "score": 8.922, "rising": 0.38, "first": "2025-11-02", "latest": "2026-09-18", "why": "Commenters like it for instant file-name search on Windows and use it in place of the built-in Windows search, with advanced queries, a command-line tool and launcher integrations.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 11, "neutral": 0, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [2, 0, 0, 6, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Instant search", "Replaces Windows search"], "caveat": "Database rewrites", "short_quote": "The tool is truly amazing. Both for simple usage, and the advanced queries that it accepts.", "icon": true, "domain": "voidtools.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.voidtools.com/", "pricing": "free", "aliases": ["Everything"], "verdict": [{"text": "Commenters like it for instant file-name search on Windows", "cites": [{"id": 751018640, "item_id": 46938665, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938665", "by": "ctoth", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Everything is amazing.", "excerpt": "Everything is amazing. Even better if you set a shortcut key (I use ctrl+shift+/) and it's just so fast. You can even query (I just recently learned this) like: *.txt size:>1024kb", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751040032, "item_id": 46940002, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46940002", "by": "tom_", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used this a lot when I was doing Windows stuff professionally, and I always really liked it.", "excerpt": "I used this a lot when I was doing Windows stuff professionally, and I always really liked it. The command line interface is good too: supply file spec that you'd type in to the GUI, and it'll print a list of matching files to stdout, one per line. Very easy to work with. I cobbled together a bit of Python stuff so that any time I was putting together a tool that needed to search for files, it could find the Everythi", "context": "professional Windows work", "use_case": "finding files by name", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 793933777, "item_id": 49620861, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49620861", "by": "eviks", "date": "2026-09-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "instant search (with the help of Everything)", "excerpt": "Ability to open a file on Enter, for starters! But also I can use JK to navigate down/up instead of moving my hand of their resting positions to the cursor. And NM you jump faster by 5 files. And the ability to change shortcuts easily And the ability to use double tap C to copy file name, and tap C then tap F to copy full file path. And turn column view into a flat list of all files at or below the current dir for ea", "context": "", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 751023424, "item_id": 46938964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938964", "by": "patapong", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This tool has completely changed the way I work with files", "excerpt": "This tool has completely changed the way I work with files - I no longer need to remember where they are, just a part of the name. Coincidentally, this means my files are better organized, since I know I can always just jump straight there instead of having to think about the folder structure. I use it so often that I put it in the search bar, so that I can open it with Win + 1.", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}]}, {"text": " and use it in place of the built-in Windows search,", "cites": [{"id": 751068176, "item_id": 46941761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46941761", "by": "newscracker", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "When I use Windows, Everything is one of the first tools I install.", "excerpt": "When I use Windows, Everything is one of the first tools I install. I also disable Windows search and indexing. I use this with Keypirinha [1], which is a launcher (kinda like Quicksilver [2] on Mac) that integrates with Everything using the Everything package. [3] This combo makes finding files as well as launching programs (or doing quick calculations or currency conversions) a breeze! [1]: https://keypirinha.com/ ", "context": "Windows user", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751024464, "item_id": 46939029, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939029", "by": "hermitcrab", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been using this tool for a while. It is incredibly useful.", "excerpt": "I've been using this tool for a while. It is incredibly useful. Kudos to the developer(s). The real question is: why is the default Windows search so terrible? Did Microsoft make it useless on purpose?", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 795378256, "item_id": 49711141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49711141", "by": "Daneel_", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Everything for search a while ago and haven\u2019t looked back.", "excerpt": "I switched to Everything for search a while ago and haven\u2019t looked back. For the start menu I replace it with Open Shell, which seems to find apps much more reliably.", "context": "", "use_case": "Windows file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27"}]}, {"text": " with advanced queries, a command-line tool and launcher integrations.", "cites": [{"id": 751023776, "item_id": 46938986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938986", "by": "wild_pointer", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The tool is truly amazing. Both for simple usage, and the advanced queries that it accepts.", "excerpt": "* The tool is truly amazing. Both for simple usage, and the advanced queries that it accepts. Very powerful, like a command line tool. * As another comment says, v1.5 alpha has many advantages. Despite the alpha label, I find it to be very stable. * Several software integrations exist: https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6326, I mostly like being able to see folder sizes instantly in explorer. I used xplo", "context": "", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751018640, "item_id": 46938665, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938665", "by": "ctoth", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Everything is amazing.", "excerpt": "Everything is amazing. Even better if you set a shortcut key (I use ctrl+shift+/) and it's just so fast. You can even query (I just recently learned this) like: *.txt size:>1024kb", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751040032, "item_id": 46940002, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46940002", "by": "tom_", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used this a lot when I was doing Windows stuff professionally, and I always really liked it.", "excerpt": "I used this a lot when I was doing Windows stuff professionally, and I always really liked it. The command line interface is good too: supply file spec that you'd type in to the GUI, and it'll print a list of matching files to stdout, one per line. Very easy to work with. I cobbled together a bit of Python stuff so that any time I was putting together a tool that needed to search for files, it could find the Everythi", "context": "professional Windows work", "use_case": "finding files by name", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751068176, "item_id": 46941761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46941761", "by": "newscracker", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "When I use Windows, Everything is one of the first tools I install.", "excerpt": "When I use Windows, Everything is one of the first tools I install. I also disable Windows search and indexing. I use this with Keypirinha [1], which is a launcher (kinda like Quicksilver [2] on Mac) that integrates with Everything using the Everything package. [3] This combo makes finding files as well as launching programs (or doing quick calculations or currency conversions) a breeze! [1]: https://keypirinha.com/ ", "context": "Windows user", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}]}, {"text": " One commenter uninstalled it because it regularly rewrites its several-hundred-MB database file,", "cites": [{"id": 751028144, "item_id": 46939259, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939259", "by": "HumanOstrich", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it updates its database by creating an entirely new copy and then deleting/renaming. For me that meant a several-hundred-MB file was being unnecessarily rewritten", "excerpt": "I used this for a while. What I don't like is that it updates its database by creating an entirely new copy and then deleting/renaming. For me that meant a several-hundred-MB file was being unnecessarily rewritten on a regular basis. It's a rather excessive waste of resources and not a polite thing to do when a lot of people have SSDs now. I uninstalled it for that reason.", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}]}, {"text": " and another built a Linux alternative because there is no Linux equivalent.", "cites": [{"id": 776488001, "item_id": 48530500, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48530500", "by": "Sbuu", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "compare", "quote": "the need to have an equivalent of voidtool's Everything on Linux", "excerpt": "Easy-search - https://github.com/BlueInt32/easy-search TUI based interface to search in your files very quickly. I created it from the need to have an equivalent of voidtool's Everything on Linux. It's a bit different though because it's keyboard based. You define zones where you search for files most of the time, and you can manage previous files history. Then there are actions you can perform on each file/folder.", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Instant search", "summary": "Finds files by partial name almost instantly, especially when bound to a hotkey.", "quotes": [{"id": 751018640, "item_id": 46938665, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938665", "by": "ctoth", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Everything is amazing.", "excerpt": "Everything is amazing. Even better if you set a shortcut key (I use ctrl+shift+/) and it's just so fast. You can even query (I just recently learned this) like: *.txt size:>1024kb", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751023424, "item_id": 46938964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938964", "by": "patapong", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This tool has completely changed the way I work with files", "excerpt": "This tool has completely changed the way I work with files - I no longer need to remember where they are, just a part of the name. Coincidentally, this means my files are better organized, since I know I can always just jump straight there instead of having to think about the folder structure. I use it so often that I put it in the search bar, so that I can open it with Win + 1.", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 735829540, "item_id": 45989346, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45989346", "by": "capnjngl", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "at the core of my workflow on Windows is using the Everything app (on hotkey) to quickly search my Drive files", "excerpt": "Like many others, I recently dove head-first into trying Linux as Windows 10 is no longer officially supported, and I really don't like a lot of design changes in Windows 11. So I went and installed Fedora, and for the most part, everything's working great. I use my machine for both work and gaming, and there are really two deal breakers right now on the work side: 1. Most of my work is web-based, and it's really sur", "context": "moved from Windows 10 to Linux for work and gaming", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable"}]}, {"label": "Replaces Windows search", "summary": "Commenters install it early and disable or bypass the default Windows search.", "quotes": [{"id": 751068176, "item_id": 46941761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46941761", "by": "newscracker", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "When I use Windows, Everything is one of the first tools I install.", "excerpt": "When I use Windows, Everything is one of the first tools I install. I also disable Windows search and indexing. I use this with Keypirinha [1], which is a launcher (kinda like Quicksilver [2] on Mac) that integrates with Everything using the Everything package. [3] This combo makes finding files as well as launching programs (or doing quick calculations or currency conversions) a breeze! [1]: https://keypirinha.com/ ", "context": "Windows user", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751024464, "item_id": 46939029, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939029", "by": "hermitcrab", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been using this tool for a while. It is incredibly useful.", "excerpt": "I've been using this tool for a while. It is incredibly useful. Kudos to the developer(s). The real question is: why is the default Windows search so terrible? Did Microsoft make it useless on purpose?", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 795378256, "item_id": 49711141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49711141", "by": "Daneel_", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Everything for search a while ago and haven\u2019t looked back.", "excerpt": "I switched to Everything for search a while ago and haven\u2019t looked back. For the start menu I replace it with Open Shell, which seems to find apps much more reliably.", "context": "", "use_case": "Windows file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27"}]}, {"label": "Integrations", "summary": "Works with launchers, file managers and Explorer mods, for example to show folder sizes.", "quotes": [{"id": 751068176, "item_id": 46941761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46941761", "by": "newscracker", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "When I use Windows, Everything is one of the first tools I install.", "excerpt": "When I use Windows, Everything is one of the first tools I install. I also disable Windows search and indexing. I use this with Keypirinha [1], which is a launcher (kinda like Quicksilver [2] on Mac) that integrates with Everything using the Everything package. [3] This combo makes finding files as well as launching programs (or doing quick calculations or currency conversions) a breeze! [1]: https://keypirinha.com/ ", "context": "Windows user", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751023776, "item_id": 46938986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938986", "by": "wild_pointer", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The tool is truly amazing. Both for simple usage, and the advanced queries that it accepts.", "excerpt": "* The tool is truly amazing. Both for simple usage, and the advanced queries that it accepts. Very powerful, like a command line tool. * As another comment says, v1.5 alpha has many advantages. Despite the alpha label, I find it to be very stable. * Several software integrations exist: https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6326, I mostly like being able to see folder sizes instantly in explorer. I used xplo", "context": "", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 793933777, "item_id": 49620861, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49620861", "by": "eviks", "date": "2026-09-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "instant search (with the help of Everything)", "excerpt": "Ability to open a file on Enter, for starters! But also I can use JK to navigate down/up instead of moving my hand of their resting positions to the cursor. And NM you jump faster by 5 files. And the ability to change shortcuts easily And the ability to use double tap C to copy file name, and tap C then tap F to copy full file path. And turn column view into a flat list of all files at or below the current dir for ea", "context": "", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}]}, {"label": "Advanced queries", "summary": "Supports powerful filters such as wildcards and size conditions.", "quotes": [{"id": 751023776, "item_id": 46938986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938986", "by": "wild_pointer", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The tool is truly amazing. Both for simple usage, and the advanced queries that it accepts.", "excerpt": "* The tool is truly amazing. Both for simple usage, and the advanced queries that it accepts. Very powerful, like a command line tool. * As another comment says, v1.5 alpha has many advantages. Despite the alpha label, I find it to be very stable. * Several software integrations exist: https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6326, I mostly like being able to see folder sizes instantly in explorer. I used xplo", "context": "", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751018640, "item_id": 46938665, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938665", "by": "ctoth", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Everything is amazing.", "excerpt": "Everything is amazing. Even better if you set a shortcut key (I use ctrl+shift+/) and it's just so fast. You can even query (I just recently learned this) like: *.txt size:>1024kb", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}]}, {"label": "Command line", "summary": "The es command-line tool prints matches to stdout and can speed up scripts compared with walking directories.", "quotes": [{"id": 751040032, "item_id": 46940002, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46940002", "by": "tom_", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used this a lot when I was doing Windows stuff professionally, and I always really liked it.", "excerpt": "I used this a lot when I was doing Windows stuff professionally, and I always really liked it. The command line interface is good too: supply file spec that you'd type in to the GUI, and it'll print a list of matching files to stdout, one per line. Very easy to work with. I cobbled together a bit of Python stuff so that any time I was putting together a tool that needed to search for files, it could find the Everythi", "context": "professional Windows work", "use_case": "finding files by name", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Database rewrites", "summary": "Updates its database by writing a full new copy, which one commenter saw as wasteful on SSDs.", "quotes": [{"id": 751028144, "item_id": 46939259, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939259", "by": "HumanOstrich", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it updates its database by creating an entirely new copy and then deleting/renaming. For me that meant a several-hundred-MB file was being unnecessarily rewritten", "excerpt": "I used this for a while. What I don't like is that it updates its database by creating an entirely new copy and then deleting/renaming. For me that meant a several-hundred-MB file was being unnecessarily rewritten on a regular basis. It's a rather excessive waste of resources and not a polite thing to do when a lot of people have SSDs now. I uninstalled it for that reason.", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}]}, {"label": "No Linux version", "summary": "A commenter built a separate tool because there was no Everything equivalent on Linux.", "quotes": [{"id": 776488001, "item_id": 48530500, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48530500", "by": "Sbuu", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "compare", "quote": "the need to have an equivalent of voidtool's Everything on Linux", "excerpt": "Easy-search - https://github.com/BlueInt32/easy-search TUI based interface to search in your files very quickly. I created it from the need to have an equivalent of voidtool's Everything on Linux. It's a bit different though because it's keyboard based. You define zones where you search for files most of the time, and you can manage previous files history. Then there are actions you can perform on each file/folder.", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"}]}], "who": [{"by": "newscracker", "context": "Windows user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46941761", "date": "2026-02-08"}, {"by": "tom_", "context": "professional Windows work", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46940002", "date": "2026-02-08"}, {"by": "capnjngl", "context": "moved from Windows 10 to Linux for work and gaming", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45989346", "date": "2025-11-19"}], "tags": ["for Windows users", "keyboard-driven", "scriptable via CLI"], "use_cases": ["file search", "instant file search", "local file search", "windows file search", "finding files by name", "fast file search on windows"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938615", "title": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly", "mentions": 7}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743097", "title": "Hister: A private search engine for the pages you visit and the files you keep", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49701004", "title": "iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589722", "title": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48528779", "title": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45985506", "title": "Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 2}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 6, "warn": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"compare": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 796032161, "item_id": 49752010, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49752010", "by": "pidgeon_lover", "date": "2026-09-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For file search, I use voidtools' Everything", "excerpt": "I use Betula (https://codeberg.org/bouncepaw/betula/) for this purpose of a self-hosted personal Google (for websites). (For file search, I use voidtools' Everything, and I'm not sure why anyone other than Microsoft would want to mix local file results and web results) This project looks cool, though I misread the name as \"Hipster\" initially [sips almond milk macha coffee]", "context": "", "use_case": "local file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hister: A private search engine for the pages you visit and the files you keep"}, {"id": 795378256, "item_id": 49711141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49711141", "by": "Daneel_", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Everything for search a while ago and haven\u2019t looked back.", "excerpt": "I switched to Everything for search a while ago and haven\u2019t looked back. For the start menu I replace it with Open Shell, which seems to find apps much more reliably.", "context": "", "use_case": "Windows file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27"}, {"id": 793933777, "item_id": 49620861, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49620861", "by": "eviks", "date": "2026-09-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "instant search (with the help of Everything)", "excerpt": "Ability to open a file on Enter, for starters! But also I can use JK to navigate down/up instead of moving my hand of their resting positions to the cursor. And NM you jump faster by 5 files. And the ability to change shortcuts easily And the ability to use double tap C to copy file name, and tap C then tap F to copy full file path. And turn column view into a flat list of all files at or below the current dir for ea", "context": "", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one"}, {"id": 776488001, "item_id": 48530500, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48530500", "by": "Sbuu", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "compare", "quote": "the need to have an equivalent of voidtool's Everything on Linux", "excerpt": "Easy-search - https://github.com/BlueInt32/easy-search TUI based interface to search in your files very quickly. I created it from the need to have an equivalent of voidtool's Everything on Linux. It's a bit different though because it's keyboard based. You define zones where you search for files most of the time, and you can manage previous files history. Then there are actions you can perform on each file/folder.", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 751068176, "item_id": 46941761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46941761", "by": "newscracker", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "When I use Windows, Everything is one of the first tools I install.", "excerpt": "When I use Windows, Everything is one of the first tools I install. I also disable Windows search and indexing. I use this with Keypirinha [1], which is a launcher (kinda like Quicksilver [2] on Mac) that integrates with Everything using the Everything package. [3] This combo makes finding files as well as launching programs (or doing quick calculations or currency conversions) a breeze! [1]: https://keypirinha.com/ ", "context": "Windows user", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751040032, "item_id": 46940002, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46940002", "by": "tom_", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used this a lot when I was doing Windows stuff professionally, and I always really liked it.", "excerpt": "I used this a lot when I was doing Windows stuff professionally, and I always really liked it. The command line interface is good too: supply file spec that you'd type in to the GUI, and it'll print a list of matching files to stdout, one per line. Very easy to work with. I cobbled together a bit of Python stuff so that any time I was putting together a tool that needed to search for files, it could find the Everythi", "context": "professional Windows work", "use_case": "finding files by name", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751028144, "item_id": 46939259, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939259", "by": "HumanOstrich", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it updates its database by creating an entirely new copy and then deleting/renaming. For me that meant a several-hundred-MB file was being unnecessarily rewritten", "excerpt": "I used this for a while. What I don't like is that it updates its database by creating an entirely new copy and then deleting/renaming. For me that meant a several-hundred-MB file was being unnecessarily rewritten on a regular basis. It's a rather excessive waste of resources and not a polite thing to do when a lot of people have SSDs now. I uninstalled it for that reason.", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751024464, "item_id": 46939029, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939029", "by": "hermitcrab", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been using this tool for a while. It is incredibly useful.", "excerpt": "I've been using this tool for a while. It is incredibly useful. Kudos to the developer(s). The real question is: why is the default Windows search so terrible? Did Microsoft make it useless on purpose?", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751023776, "item_id": 46938986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938986", "by": "wild_pointer", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The tool is truly amazing. Both for simple usage, and the advanced queries that it accepts.", "excerpt": "* The tool is truly amazing. Both for simple usage, and the advanced queries that it accepts. Very powerful, like a command line tool. * As another comment says, v1.5 alpha has many advantages. Despite the alpha label, I find it to be very stable. * Several software integrations exist: https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6326, I mostly like being able to see folder sizes instantly in explorer. I used xplo", "context": "", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751023424, "item_id": 46938964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938964", "by": "patapong", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This tool has completely changed the way I work with files", "excerpt": "This tool has completely changed the way I work with files - I no longer need to remember where they are, just a part of the name. Coincidentally, this means my files are better organized, since I know I can always just jump straight there instead of having to think about the folder structure. I use it so often that I put it in the search bar, so that I can open it with Win + 1.", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 751018640, "item_id": 46938665, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938665", "by": "ctoth", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Everything is amazing.", "excerpt": "Everything is amazing. Even better if you set a shortcut key (I use ctrl+shift+/) and it's just so fast. You can even query (I just recently learned this) like: *.txt size:>1024kb", "context": "", "use_case": "file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Voidtools Everything \u2013 Locate files and folders by name instantly"}, {"id": 735829540, "item_id": 45989346, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45989346", "by": "capnjngl", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "at the core of my workflow on Windows is using the Everything app (on hotkey) to quickly search my Drive files", "excerpt": "Like many others, I recently dove head-first into trying Linux as Windows 10 is no longer officially supported, and I really don't like a lot of design changes in Windows 11. So I went and installed Fedora, and for the most part, everything's working great. I use my machine for both work and gaming, and there are really two deal breakers right now on the work side: 1. Most of my work is web-based, and it's really sur", "context": "moved from Windows 10 to Linux for work and gaming", "use_case": "instant file search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable"}, {"id": 732698016, "item_id": 45793626, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45793626", "by": "dangus", "date": "2025-11-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The \u201cEverything\u201d application is what you want:", "excerpt": "The \u201cEverything\u201d application is what you want: https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/", "context": "", "use_case": "fast file search on Windows", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark"}]}