Desktop Search Tools

Archivarius 3000 allows you to index documents and files on your computer, removable drives or local network and enables quick and efficient searching through their content. You can perform simple searches or specify detailed search attributes, including file size, date and more. During the indexing process, the program will extract and save detailed information about documents, allowing you to search and overview documents even if these are physically not accessible (e.g CD not in the drive). The searches can be performed from the application interface or via included web server, allowing you to search the index from any browser on the network. Additional features include scheduled index updates, (web) search logging, document preview with keyword highlighting and more.

FileLocator Pro is the shareware version of the popular Agent Ransack file searching utility. It allows you to search your hard drive for information and offers convenient preview features to help you quickly locate the appropriate file without actually having to open it. It supports basic and advanced search options as well as regular expression and search inside ZIP and PDF files. Additional features include Active Scripting (JScript, VBScript, PerlScript etc.), search customization, XML output, built-in file viewer and more.

Windows Grep is a text search tool that allows you to search your computer for files containing a specified text. It offers an easy-to-use wizard interface as well as an advanced mode with support for regular expressions, Soundex and more. You can filter the search by date ranges, file types, location, size, skip binary files and more. Windows Grep presents you with a list of the found files, as well as a preview of the context where the keywords were found and also interactively replace the search text with a new one. You can perform replacements on the selected file or the entire set of results. Additional features include customizable output, automatic backup of originals and more. Trial version does not expire and has no limitations.

Effective File Search (EFS) is a powerful, yet easy to use search tool, that allows you to search for files on your computer or local network. The program looks very similar to the standard Windows search dialog, but offers several additional features that extend the search capabilities. In addition to that it offers a variety of options to process the found files - you can move/copy all of them or selected items, rename them to upper or lower case, copy file names and more. You can search in folders or within results with optional filters that include date and size, containing text or hexadecimal codes. In addition, you can use Boolean operators to perform multiple keyword searches. Search results and parameters can be saved.

Network Searcher is a multithreaded search engine for Local Area Networks (LANs), that can find files based on several criteria, including file masks, keywords, size and more. It supports hidden shares and lets you perform basic file management (delete, move, copy) with the results. The results can be exported to text or HTML file and even as Winamp playlist, which is useful when searching for audio files. The results are presented in an Explorer style view and can be sorted, filtered and saved. NetworkSearcher produces results very fast, and the integrated network tree allows you to easily select the machines that should be included in the search.

SearchInform is a full-text document search engine, that works with files on your PC, as well as data sources like MS SQL, Access, Oracle and other DBMS supporting SQL. It combines phrasal search with the consideration of morphology and synonyms thesaurus to find documents similar by content. Once the index has been created, you can use the search interface to query the database. The result will be returned with highlighted excerpts of the original document. Other features include customizable word lists to manipulate the results, saving and combining of search results, and more.

Ava Find lets you find any file on your computer instantly. You can enter a keyword in the search box or select from predefined categories including movies, pictures, downloads and more. You can open any file from within the search results and also access the standard Explorer functions for that specific file type. The program can sort the results in different ways, allowing you to locate large files, old files etc. easily. In addition, the SearchScout feature lets you find newly downloaded files or recently changed documents with a single click. The program works by indexing your hard drive(s) on a regular basis and also allows you to exclude selected folders or files from the search results. The basic search functionality in AvaFind is free and you can continue to use it beyond the evaluation period.

Search GT is a replacement for the standard Windows File Search tool, that finds files many times faster (usually within a couple of seconds), without the use of any background indexing. It integrates with Windows Explorer and the Search menu and looks very similar to the standard search dialog and return results in the same Explorer window. Search GT is a handy replacement that really speeds up file searches without adding additional overhead.

ISYS Email Search lets you find email messages quickly, using key words, names, phrases and dates in all your Outlook and Outlook Express emails. It offers high speed searching and customizable search methods to find email messages in a matter of seconds. You can use an advanced query syntax, a natural language search or a web style search method that works similar to internet search engines. The results provide hit highlighting, relevancy ranking and integrated with Outlook or Outlook Express. ISYS Email Search can optionally add a toolbar button to Outlook and Outlook Express and automatically re-index your email on a regular basis. An excellent tool for anyone that keeps large numbers of email messages.

Find Desktop is a desktop search engine that indexes selected folders or drives and makes it easy to find your documents and files. It uses and O.C.R. engine to allow you to search directly in the text contained in documents or images. In addition, it allows you to index your email messages, and documents that are imported from a scanner. The search keyword are automatically highlighted within the original document (PDF, Word, Excel, etc..), making it easy to view the context of the result.

Instant Document Search is a search engine for locating documents stored on your PC. It works by indexing selected folders or drives, and then runs searches on the index, allowing almost instant results. It supports Boolean searches and phrase searches, and provides context preview and keyword highlights in the search results. Instant Document Search only supports Plain Text, Rich Text, MS Word and HTML documents.

EMCO LAN File Search enables you to search for files across your LAN, including FTP servers. It supports file masks, as well as additional filters and can search for text strings within files. Unless you specify a file mask, the program will search for specified text in all files (including binaries), which can be extremely time consuming. You can search through all available network machines, or just specific computers, and also schedule search task to be performed automatically at specified times. The search results offer standard file management features including copy,move, sort and more.

1st TurboRun is a unique file locator and launcher that allows you to quickly find files in common folders, such as the Start Menu, My Documents, Favorites as well as user specified locations. All you have to do is type part of the file or program name and it will instantly display an organized list of matching items. To further limit the search results, it offers a handy filter option that will only display recent files that are dated within a user specified time range (e.g only today, only this week etc.). The program does not require any indexing, but performs searches in real-time (rather fast). 1st TurboRun can be launched from the system tray icon or via keyboard hotkey.

Find Protected allows you to scan a computer and find several types of password protected files. The program can detect protected ZIP and RAR archives as well as password protected Office documents (Word, Excel, Access) as well as encrypted PGP disks. The program can NOT find files that have been encrypted or protected with any other third party application, so if you are concerned about information theft, this program is of very limited use.

X1 Enterprise Client is a desktop search engine that automatically indexes files, email messages and contacts on your computer and returns instant results for your keyword searches. The results are organized in a tabbed interface, sorted by file type and provide a quick preview for most common file types including images, PDF files, Office files, ZIP files and many other formats. You can directly interact with the results by replying to emails, sending messages to contacts, opening files, playing music and also send any file as email attachment with the click of a button. The program allows you to customize drives and folders, as well as file types that should be included in the index, and the indexing can be performed in the background whenever your PC is no in use.

Turbo Searcher indexes your local hard drive(s) and allows for fast searching of the content. You can search files by name, date, size and/or containing text. It lets you search for ASCII strings, UNICODE strings and HEX codes in files and also supports searching within PDF files,as well as compressed archives (ZIP,RAR,CAB,etc.). The search results will display the found keyword with sample of the content, and provide the standard Windows Explorer right-clcik options to move, copy or delete the file. In addition, Turbo Searcher can also scan for duplicate files, using one of 6 comparison levels. Additional features include export of the results to text or CSV, Explorer integration and more. Trial version limited to 15 search results.

diskMETA Pro is a document indexer and search tool with a web like interface. It allows you to create multiple indexes of your local or shared network files and perform instant full-text searches. It supports .txt, .doc, .xls, .html, .pdf, .rtf, and .chm files, and can also index documents inside ZIP and RAR files. Since the program indexes the files, the search results are returned almost instantly, and search keywords are highlighted in a search engine style result page. They can be sorted by relevancy, location or date. Additional features include morphological support for English, German, and Spanish and a preview with text reconstruction.