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Files - Search (26)

UltraSearch Free v4.1.2 Updated

Stephen Leibowitz on 8 Mar 2024
  • 55MB (uncompressed)
  • Released on 22 Feb 2024
  • Suggested by guinness

UltraSearch Free is a fast and feature-rich search tool, building a searchable listing of drive content in seconds. File name searches narrow as they are typed and support wildcards such as "*.txt". Additional information like file size and last change date are present, along with access to Explorer's own context menu.

The program also includes a slower, non-indexing file content search that will look inside files, including a variety of Office (DOCX, PDF, PST, ODT) and compressed files (ZIP, 7Z, RAR). It is recommended that you provide a small set of files to check e.g. ext:DOCX content:portable to look for the word "portable" in MS Word files.

Other search options include AND / OR operations, regular expressions, a custom exclude filter for path, files, parent folders, etc., and results can be exported to text and CSV. Commercial version available with more features.

Version 3.1.2.678 is compatible with Win 7 and has not expired, but it is in installer form.

Category:
Runs on:Win8 / Win10
Writes settings to: Application folder
Dependencies: Administrator rights (or launch with /NOADMIN argument)
Unicode support: Yes
License: Freeware/Liteware
How to extract: Download the "Portable" ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch UltraSearch.exe.
Similar/alternative apps: Everything
What's new? See: https://www.jam-software.com/ultrasearch_free/changes.shtml
Latest comments
TP109 on 2021-11-18 17:07

Changes for Version 3.1.2

"... support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 ends with version 3.1.2. Subsequent versions will no longer support these operating systems."

https://www.jam-software.com/ultrasearch_free/changes.shtml

just_boss on 2022-02-16 03:24

The app crashes a lot

Pendrive on 2023-09-14 12:58

I tried the latest version but it came up with a message saying it does not work for Windows 8 and that I had to use an older one.

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Agent Ransack Lite v2022 Build 3425 Updated

Ennovy on 26 Feb 2024
  • 156MB (uncompressed)
  • Released on 26 Feb 2024
  • Suggested by portackager

Agent Ransack (aka File Locator) Lite looks for files and file contents on your PC or network drives, with filters for dates and size. Includes themes, tabbed search entries, preview window, and search priority. Search types supported include wildcard, boolean, and regex on both filenames and file internals. You can import/export search criteria and export detailed search results.

Finds details inside standard text files, as well as PDF and Office formats. Note that Win7 users will need the Filter Pack (not portable) to search Office files, as described on the website.

A pro version is available with additional features. Note that "FileLocator Pro" is just a rename of this program.

Category:
Runs on:Win7 / Win8 / Win10 / Win11
Writes settings to: Application folder
Stealth: ? Yes
Unicode support: Yes
License: Freeware/Liteware
How to extract:
  1. Download the "Portable" installer (either 32 or 64-bit) from the homepage under "Other Downloads"
  2. Extract to a folder of your choice
  3. Launch AgentRansack.exe
  4. When prompted, choose "Lite" (free)
Similar/alternative apps: DocFetcher, SearchMyFiles
What's new? See: https://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/information/#version-history
Latest comments
PapaiMark on 2022-07-10 21:58

125MB for a simple search file!!! Well, "FindIt" from 2005 does the same with only 800KB.

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SearchMyFiles v3.24 Updated

Andrew Lee on 22 Feb 2024

SearchMyFiles is a powerful alternative to the standard Windows search. It allows you to easily find files by wildcard, last modified/created/last accessed time, file attributes, content (text or binary search) and file size. File types available for search includes Microsoft Office and PDF files. The program also be detect duplicate files via the "Search Mode" drop-down box.

Note that the program is non-indexing, meaning it searches the drive directly, which is often slower but more accurate.

Category:
Runs on:Win2K / WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10
Writes settings to: Application folder
Stealth: ? Yes
Unicode support: Yes
License: Freeware
How to extract: Download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch SearchMyFiles.exe.
Similar/alternative apps: SwiftSearch
What's new?
  • Fixed bug: Under some conditions, SearchMyFiles displayed incorrect result when searching text inside files.
  • Fixed issue: When copying data to the clipboard or exporting to tab-delimited file, every line contained an empty field in the end of the line.
Latest comments
Checker on 2014-08-14 18:34

@ smaragdus: Thanks ... and updated ;)

MIKLO on 2018-04-06 14:57

I have tried and used several search apps before and was not very impressed but as soon as I saw that this product was from NirSoft I knew I had to try it. NirSoft makes so many great apps that I use a lot, its difficult to say something new about them due to the fact that just about everything they make works great and is pretty awesome overall. One thing is 4sure the native Micro$oft search engine is close to worthless, so just about anything will be an improvement.
MIKLO

freakazoid on 2022-01-11 16:08

The latest version is such a welcome addition as it allows you to set the font and size used in the search results.

My eyes are not what they once was, so increasing the font size makes things much more legible for me especially when sitting far back in my chair!

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MobileFileSearch v1.47

rbon on 5 Oct 2023
  • 195KB (uncompressed)
  • Released on 5 Oct 2023
  • Suggested by billon

MobileFileSearch allows you to search files inside a mobile device (Smartphone or Tablet) plugged to the USB port on your computer, with Media Transfer Protocol (MTP). You can search files by their size, their created time, their modified time, or their name (using wildcard).

After finding the files, you can optionally delete them, copy them to a folder on your computer, or export the files list to CSV/tab-delimited/HTML/XML/JSON file.

Category:
Runs on:Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10
Writes settings to: Application folder
Unicode support: Yes
License: Freeware
How to extract: Download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch MobileFileSearch.exe.
What's new?
  • Added 'Sort By' button to the toolbar.

Listary v5.0.0.2843

Andrew Lee on 7 Jul 2023
  • 8MB (uncompressed)
  • Released on 14 Oct 2018
  • Suggested by Jacob125

Listary is an enhancement that allows you to quickly search almost any listing in Windows by simply typing your search terms. The program will pop up a small, semi-transparent window in Explorer windows (including open/save dialogs), Task Manager, Registry Editor and even directly on your desktop. The program works with almost any application with a system-generated list.

Although some programs will automatically jump to the first letter you type (a find-as-you-type feature of Windows Explorer), you must type quickly for more than one letter and cannot see your output. Listary brings a long-time feature of Linux to Windows, letting you enter whole words and type slower with automatic changes. Additionally, it allows wildcards and has the ability to edit your input with immediate results.

Advanced features include hotkeys, autocomplete, blacklists, favorites, a customizable window. Note that the program contains many "pro"-only features, but the program is very functional in its basic version.

Note: The latest version is no longer portable. This entry has been updated to reflect the last known portable version of the program.

Category:
Runs on:Win8 / Win10 / Win11
Writes settings to: Application folder
Dependencies: Administrator rights
Stealth: ? Yes
Unicode support: Yes
License: Free for personal use
How to extract: Download the "Portable Version" ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch Listary.exe.
What's new?
  • Improved: Better compatibility with recent Windows 10 updates.
Latest comments
Ennovy on 2023-07-02 04:36

Listary v6 is no longer portable. There is only an installer version wich indicates that settings are stored in the user profile folder. Latest portable version is v5.00.2843 for Windows 10 / 8 / 7 / Vista / XP SP3. Download: http://web.archive.org/web/20200505013426/https://www.listary.com/download/ListaryPortable.zip?version=5.00.2843

Andrew Lee on 2023-07-07 01:27

@Ennovy: I have updated the entry to reflect this information. Thanks!

Ennovy on 2024-03-15 01:30

PortableApps.com released version 6.2.0.42: https://portableapps.com/news/2024-03-14--listary-portable-6.2.0.42-released

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SMF – Search my Files v15

Andrew Lee on 7 Jun 2023
  • 7MB (uncompressed)
  • Released on 3 Jun 2023
  • Suggested by guinness

SMF is a powerful file search and duplicate finding tool that uses hashing (MD5, CRC32 or SHA1) to determine similarity. Includes a host of filter capabilities and a result-reporting tool, with which you can sub-filter the result set according to your needs.

The program lets you search by last modified date, keyword, or file attribute; pictures of a certain filesize, dimension, or metadata info; MP3s by length, author, or bitrate; and duplicate pictures that have a certain filesize or dimension.

Category:
Runs on:WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10
Writes settings to: Application folder
Stealth: ? Yes
Unicode support: Yes
License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
How to extract:
  1. Download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice
  2. Launch SMF.exe
  3. At first run, click "Start SMF". The Portable Install should be selected and Explorer ContextMenu Integration should be grayed out.
What's new?
  • Updated – SQLite Dll to 3.42.0
  • Updated – MediaInfo Dll to 23.04
  • Updated – TrID Definitions to version 2023-May-14
  • Updated – Added dHash visual similarity check
  • Updated – Improved thumbnail creation speed
  • Fixed – Caching of hashes to speed up duplicate search
  • Fixed – Report crash on stats change
  • Fixed – CTRL+ALT+F explorer integration
  • Updated – Lots of other small bug fixes and style changes
Latest comments
guinness on 2011-06-02 10:21

Done! I was a little slow this time :D

olliebean on 2021-03-28 13:13

This doesn't seem to be truly portable. On its first run, it "installs" the portable version, meaning that although all data and settings are stored within the application directory, that location is hardcoded within the settings as an absolute, not a relative path. If that directory is moved, the program will either continue to use the original location for its settings - or, if that directory no longer exists, will "reinstall" into the new directory, and wipe the previous settings and database even though they still existed within the directory. The only way around this would be to manually edit the SMF_Files setting in the SMF.ini file any time the application directory is moved to a new location.

KaFu on 2021-10-10 11:21

@olliebean: Issue with portable install fixed with v14, please report bugs on my homepage.
Regards, Karsten

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AstroGrep v4.4.9

Ennovy on 27 May 2023
  • 2MB (uncompressed)
  • Released on 1 Apr 2023
  • Suggested by smaragdus

AstroGrep is a search utility for quickly finding information within text files. Results are displayed with sidebar options for further filtering and preferences for text result styling. Searches using keywords and regular expressions are supported with options for printing, storing recently used paths, and opening files externally with a text editor (down to the exact line number and column, if supported by the editor).

The program is not an indexing search program, meaning it checks the contents of all files each time it searches. Based on the popular grep search used in *nix.

Category:
Runs on:Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10
Writes settings to: Application folder
Dependencies: Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Stealth: ? Yes
Unicode support: Yes
License: GPL
How to extract: Download the "portable" ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch AstroGrep.exe.
Similar/alternative apps: HABExam
What's new? See:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/astrogrep/files/AstroGrep (Win32)/AstroGrep v4.4.9/
Latest comments
juverax on 2021-02-22 11:32

AstroGrep does not search for strings of characters inside binary files.
This is a major limitation of the usefulness of this application

webfork on 2021-02-22 16:54

@juverax, thanks for that -- updated entry to better explain that.

juverax on 2021-02-22 21:28

HABExam ( https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1240 ) can search for ASCII strings inside any type of file

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Everything v1.4.1.1024

Ennovy on 26 May 2023
  • 2MB (uncompressed)
  • Released on 26 May 2023
  • Suggested by Drutt

Everything is a powerful search tool that locates files and folders by file name instantly, and includes an FTP and Web server interface. It also can search files by their contents. Unlike Windows search, Everything initially displays all files and folders on your computer. You simply type in part of the desired file name to limit what files and folders are displayed instantly. The more you type, the more specific the list becomes.

Note that the instant-search capability only works on NTFS/ReFS-formatted drives and only uses file and folder names in a file index. The program can separately catalog non-NTFS/ReFS and network servers for searching on a schedule.

Category:
Runs on:Win2K / WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10 / Win11
Writes settings to: Application folder
Stealth: ? Yes
Unicode support: Yes
License: Freeware
How to extract: Download the "Portable" ZIP package depending on your OS and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch Everything.exe.
Similar/alternative apps: HDDB, Ultra File Search Lite, UltraSearch
What's new? See:
https://www.voidtools.com/Changes.txt
https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/whats_new/.
Latest comments
Nh on 2017-04-29 18:41

In case it does not remembers sort order, you have to edit 2 lines in Everything.ini:

sort=Type
always_keep_sort=1

__philippe on 2019-01-26 04:54

Everything v1.4.1.932

Cumulative detailed changelog: https://www.voidtools.com/Changes.txt

Bruce on 2020-07-30 21:07

This is a great program. I've found very helpful tracking down misplaced or seemingly lost files.

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WizFile v3.09

Andrew Lee on 28 Feb 2023
  • 17MB (uncompressed)
  • Released on 28 Feb 2023
  • Suggested by smaragdus

WizFile is a near-instant search utility for finding files and folders. Results can be sorted by name, size or date and file type (audio, video, image, compressed etc.). The program supports wildcards, AND/OR operations and much more.

The program rapidly searches NTFS-formatted drives using the Master File Table feature so it's ready for use very quickly after launch. The program also supports non-NTFS formatted drives and network shares (e.g. //servername/sharename), monitoring for file changes and making search results visible in real-time.

Category:
Runs on:WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10
Writes settings to: Application folder
Dependencies: Administrator rights
Stealth: ? Yes
Unicode support: Yes
License: Free for personal use/Donationware
How to extract:
  1. Download the "Portable" ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice
  2. Delete unnecessary locales
  3. Launch WizFile.exe or WizFile64.exe
Similar/alternative apps: Everything, UltraSearch, SwiftSearch
What's new? See: https://antibody-software.com/wizfile/whats-new
Latest comments
Special on 2020-11-26 15:15

With v3.00, It now "phones home" even when check for updates are disabled, why? Previous versions did not "phone home" and my settings have not changed. So either this is a bug with the auto-update check or the dev have decided to start collecting user "telemetry" without user consent, nor any way to opt out of this. So stick with v2.06 if this bothers you.

Nh on 2021-01-08 03:25

There is still no simple thing - a type/extension column.

PAFuser on 2021-12-21 16:48

Now available under portableapps.com. But, had to change link to 3.07 from 4.07. Hopefully will be corrected soon. New listing is for 3.37 also an error.

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DocFetcher v1.1.25

Andrew Lee on 30 May 2021
  • 82MB (uncompressed)
  • Released on 25 May 2021
  • Suggested by vixay

DocFetcher indexes your computer, making the contents of a wide variety of files instantly searchable. Selecting a search result shows a preview of the file with text highlighted and without formatting. You can filter results by location, file type, minimum and/or maximum filesize and more. The program can index Microsoft Office, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, PDF, RTF, EPUB, HTML and more formats from drives, external volumes, archive files and Outlook .PST files (some .OST files also work).

The program supports complex searches via wildcards, proximity, ranges, "fuzzy" terms, and more using Lucene search. You can also do standard file name search via "filename:searchterm." The program is cross-platform and functional on OS X and Linux, as well as 64-bit Windows.

Note:

  • The program requires that you manually add folders/drives that you want to view before searching. See the "Basic Usage" section of the homepage for a few intro steps. When adding to the search scope, make sure to check "Store relative paths if possible"
  • Some issues have appeared with the program on Windows 10. Users may wish to test the PortableApps beta version if you have issues.

Category:
Runs on:WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10
Writes settings to: Application folder
Dependencies: Java Runtime Environment 1.7 or higher, see forum for use with Java Portable.
Stealth: ? Yes
Unicode support: Yes
License: Eclipse Public License
How to extract: Download the "portable" ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch DocFetcher.exe.

If you see a memory error (very rare): either reduce the size/number of files indexed or do the following (64-bit Java only):
  1. Delete DocFetcher.exe from the main folder
  2. From the \misc folder, copy DocFetcher-8192_64-bit-Java.exe to the root folder and rename it to DocFetcher.exe
Similar/alternative apps: SearchMyFiles
What's new? See: https://sourceforge.net/p/docfetcher/wiki/ChangeLog/
Latest comments
Checker on 2015-02-18 17:23

@ smaragdus: Thanks ... and updated ;)

webfork on 2015-06-30 01:35

Tremendous search program that has saved me again and again, finding files and content that other programs miss. Each version seems to add to the pile of file formats it can index. As a result, it's on every machine I own and some I don't.

MoisheP on 2018-06-17 01:13

DocFetcher indexes many formats, such as LibreOffice documents, that Microsoft Search (aka Cortana) does not, or does incompletely. It also uses far less CPU time, once the initial indexing is completed, than MS. DocFetcher also runs on Linux. Results can be sorted by likelihood of match, as well as filename, type, date etc. Only downside is that it requires Java.

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