Everything (software)


Everything is a desktop search utility for Windows that can rapidly find files and folders by name. Since January 2013, Everything has been actively developed after a four-year break. This utility is released under a free software license that allows modification and commercial redistribution, requiring only attribution.

Overview

When Everything first runs, it creates an index of the names of every file and folder on all NTFS and ReFS volumes on the system from file metadata, in the case of NTFS from the NTFS Master File Table. By default, all mounted NTFS and ReFS volumes are indexed. Once created, the index is continually updated by the application; in the case of NTFS the updates are fetched from the NTFS change journal.
Specific folders on any file system can also be added to the index, but the indexing of folders not using NTFS or ReFS will be slow, although searching using the completed index will not be.
Regardless of the file system used on the indexed drives and folders, Everything searches its index for file names matching a user search expression, which may be a fragment of the target file name or a regular expression, displaying intermediate and immediate results as the search term is entered.
Because Everything does not index content and, for NTFS drives, relies only on the NTFS change journal to filter file updates, the only file system activity it requires on NTFS drives is updating its index, and it uses very little memory and processor time to provide its service when only indexing NTFS and ReFS drives.
Take Command Console incorporates the internal command everything to allow command line access to the program.

Similar alternatives

These alternative and also free search engines use the same technique of reading the NTFS index directly: