WinFindr - Alternative to Windows Search

Windows has always shipped with a file search tool, so you might be wondering why you would need a different one.

Windows Search is slow

Many users have reported issues with Windows Search, espcially it working very slowly even on a fast computer with modern hardware. WinFindr is very light and very fast.

Windows Search is unreliable

Many users have also reported that Windows Search is unreliable. One day searching with a specific search term finds the file you are looking for, and the next day it doesn’t find anything at all. WinFindr is reliable, it will find the exact same data, every single time.

Windows Search requires indexing

While technically Windows Search does not require indexing, many users are reporting that without indexing, the search is even slower and even less reliable. WinFindr does not require indexing and it just works.

Only search for files and folders

Windows Search is only for searching for files and folders. It does not search for registry data. Naturally, Windows also ships with the Windows Registry Editor (RegEdit) and it can be used to search for registry data. But it gets awkward if you want to search both filesystem data and registry data and save the results to a file, or just see the search results in a single user interface.

Natural language search

WinFindr supports many types of natural language search such as ignoring accented characters - For example, a search term “cafe” will match “The best cafés in Braga.pdf”.

WinFindr also supports a natural search option to ignore derived words and conjugations in English. For example, a search term “invoice” will match files such as “Invoicing.pdf”.

Furthermore, WinFindr also supports proximity search. For example, to search for files whose name (or content) includes search words “cute” and “cat” and both terms must be found at most, say, 6 words apart.

Why doesn’t WinFindr support indexing?

Windows Search and Everything by Voidtools are known for their indexing. Windows tells you that you need to have the indexer running to search for files and folders and when you install Everything, it asks you how do you want to keep the indexing running.

This is also a source of some issues for many users. You can find many users reporting online that this type of indexing is using a lot of system resources or causing other issues.

WinFindr doesn’t use any kind of indexing. Instead, it uses application-level caching to speed up the search. While this is not as fast as Everything’s instantenous search, it is typically faster than the Windows Search and it has its advantages.

Another reason why WinFindr doesn’t use indexing is philosophical. I believe it is the duty of the hardware and the operating system to use caching and indexing to make disk access and searching fast. As a developer, I find it odd if all third party software that ever needs to look up for any data would need to rely on building and maintainting their own indexing systems.

As mentioned, there are many advantages to not using indexing. That being said, there are also some disadvantages. The main one is that if you are running a system with a lot of network drives and you need to search for data on those drives, you probably need to have some kind of indexing in place to avoid a lot of data from being accessed through the slow network connection. If that is your primary use case, then a no-indexing tool like WinFindr is not for you.

Comparison table

Since everything looks better in a table, here is a comparison table of WinFindr vs. Everything vs. Windows Search.

WinFindr is a great alternative to Windows Search

Windows Search ships with Windows, so it’s always there. Unfortunately, it’s just not very good. WinFindr is a great alternative to Windows Search.

Download WinFindr

What are you waiting for? Download WinFindr now. It won’t fluff your pillows, but you can have a nap knowing you’ll be able to find your files.