Everything Search Engine - Locate files and folders instantly

Well... you say that. This is actually the reason I do not have it currently installed. I was finding that If I was running something else that was causing a lot of disk activity that Everything would be right there with it updating its database. This would cause slowdowns and I was concerned with wear on SSDs so I removed it. I love the program but I'm not using it until I can be convinced it is not wearing out my drives.

 

That's not the case for me. There's no I/O activity (read, write or "other") in task manager when I'm not using everything (for both exes). I've disabled the everything service and unticked the "monitor changes" checkbox, as well as the "index recent changes" and "load recent changes from USN journal" one. I'm also using the portable version though that shouldn't matter

 

Couldn't agree more. I've been using it for many years and still like it very much. It's definitely one of my must-have tools.

 

@xxJackxx,
as Floyd 57 said, you can change settings in Everything to your wishes.
That can be done with setup and/or after installation.
In setup, I choose run as administrator instead of using the Everything service, and I set Everything not to start on system startup.
The same settings can be made after installation, and more: setting Everything not to start on system startup, setting Everything to run as administrator instead of using the service, and setting Everything not to run in the background.
That way, Everything only runs when I want it to.

 

If Everything is launched, it is loading the database from hard disk and then the database is held (& updated) in memory.
Only after closing of Everything the database is saved to hard disk.

More precise:
* If the database is re-build, new volumes are added/removed, specific options are changed in Everything, "monitor changes" is ticked/unticked in the settings, ...
* If Everything is exited, it is writing the database to hard disk.
= As long as the above is not happening, it doesn't write a single bit to the database on hard disk.

For monitoring of the access and to find out how much Everything is writing to hard disk, "Disk writes" (or similar named columns in ProcessHacker/Process Explorer, ...) must be monitored, not "I/O writes"! (I/O writes includes more than only Disk writes and this might lead to a wrong interpretation of the result)
FileActivityWatch is also a nice utility. But there are of course more utilities for monitoring of file access.

Running of Everything without a database saved to hard disk
command-line option

-nodb
Do not save to or load from the "Everything" database file.​

Editing of the file Everything.ini and changing of "db_location=" to "db_location=nul" has the same effect.
With the above change in the file Everything.ini the command-line option -nodb can now be left out.​

Most of the time you should see only read activity (reading of the USN Journal).

But there might be slowdowns (high CPU-%) if a lot of files and folders are created/renamed/deleted in a row. Now Everything needs to constantly update its database (in memory)
Some applications or tasks might lead to a high file activity, in this case Everything can be closed prior starting of the application or:

There is an option to type: "/monitor_pause" into Everything. Now monitoring is disabled and Everything should be idle now.
Searching for files is still possible but of course while the monitoring is paused, new file changes cannot be seen in Everything.
After typing of: "/monitor_resume" Everything should continue its work.

 

I'm pretty confident that if you untick "monitor changes" (for each volume) you don't have to do that, as I just downloaded and extracted an 8gb file with lots of small folders and files and the I/O activity of everything did not change

 

Everything causes I/O... obviously because it uses a DB file, if you don't want a DB file then use WizFile, which is basically the same thing as Everything but does it all in RAM and leaves no trace file.

 

I stand corrected, it seems like new files and folders (and any changes) must be added to the database before everything can show them, which means that basically you have to rebuild the database every time before searching, which is still better than constantly monitoring for changes but not ideal

 

I think the "monitor changes" is the key to how much disk activity there is. I expect it does not pick up file system changes rapidly if you uncheck it. If it is checked, I have seen write activity when I watch it with Process Explorer. It can slow installation times significantly. That said, I have not used it in a while, maybe something has changed since then. I may play with it to do some more up to date testing. As mentioned, WizFile is light, but it lacks features for me. I haven't looked at that in a while either though.

 

Well personally for me, I have a big TO-DO list of stuff. The world is just so vast that there isn't enough time for everything, and that's why I have a list with all kinds of interesting stuff that I'd be interested in doing. And it just so happens, that right now the next on the line is finding a better search software than microsoft's default which I've always used and I know it's trash but I've never been quite up to the task of finding a better one as the integrated windows search has done its job just fine, I know where I put my files and folders and I only need a very basic file-name search in case I forget something which is rare but it can happen. And I'm a min-maxer kind of guy, I want everything (not the program) to be perfect. And Everything (the program) is not perfect, so I'm gonna try some other search software and see how it goes

 

I think Everything is a great program and I appreciate the authors work considerably. I don't think my complaints with it can be fixed. Maybe it doesn't hurt an SSD. Maybe it does. When I had mechanical disk I had it installed on all of them. Possibly changes to Windows have complicated things. It seems like it used to be less resource intensive. I will likely re-evaluate it on my current setup sooner than later.

As for search utilities, if you are willing to pay for one, I find Copernic and X1 to be incredible utilities. I actually sold a co-worker on X1 recently. I'm too cheap to pay for it myself. If it was free or cheaper I would use it. It would likely have the same indexing issues as any, but its capabilities exceed the minuses for me. This is only a personal recommendation, I am affiliated with none of these utilities in any way.

 

Everything v1.4.1.932 Released (January 26, 2019)
Download

 

Everything v1.4.1.935 Released (February 18, 2019)
Download

 

Everything v1.4.1.965 Released (March 2, 2020)
Download

Spoiler: Changes v1.4.1.965

https://voidtools.com/Changes.txt

Monday, 2 March 2020: Version 1.4.1.965
• fixed an issue with using the wrong column index in LVM_GETCOLUMN.
• fixed an issue with the es: url protocol.
• fixed an issue with Everything holding onto volume handles after RegisterDeviceNotification fails.
• fixed an issue with treating unmounted volumes as NTFS.
• fixed another crash with unaligned memory access and some USB disk drivers.
• fixed an issue when renaming a file or folder.
• fixed a crash with unaligned memory access and some USB disk drivers.
• fixed an issue with Everything not showing as an active window correctly.
• fixed an issue with Windows 10 not giving Everything focus from the system tray after opening and closing the startmenu not working when creating a new window.
• fixed an issue with Windows 10 not giving Everything focus from the system tray after opening and closing the startmenu.
• fixed an issue with scheduled folder updates never occuring for network drives when waking from sleep.
• fixed an issue when permanently deleting folders with really long filenames.
• fixed an issue with gathering icons for files with paths longer than 260 characters.
• fixed an issue with IPC query returning the incorrect total items.
• fixed an issue with hidden windows staying hidden forever.
• fixed an issue with rendering negative visible result items.
• fixed an issue with saving column positions and widths.
• fixed an issue with showing suggestions above the search box.
• fixed an issue with context menus ignoring base keys.
• fixed an issue with Everything resetting the sort after rebuilding the database.
• fixed an issue with accessing offline volumes.
• fixed an issue with comparing dc: to dm:
• fixed an issue with attrib:d
• improved folder indexing and rescanning performance.
• access denied dialog will now prompt to install the Everything Service by default when Store settings and data in %APPDATA%\Everything is enabled.

 

Everything v1.4.1.969 Released (March 16, 2020)
Download

 

Everything v1.4.1.986 Released (July 23, 2020)
Website
Download

Spoiler: Changes v1.4.1.986

https://www.voidtools.com/Changes.txt

Thursday, 23 July 2020: Version 1.4.1.986
Fixed an issue with excluding filenames with 4-byte UTF-8 characters.
Fixed an issue with -focus-result command line options.
Fixed an issue with \\.\c: service access
Fixed an issue with db corruption from duplicated filenames.
Fixed a corrupt db issue when re-scanning duplicated files.
Compiled with /DYNAMICBASE
Compiled with /NXCOMPAT
Fixed an issue with Ctrl + Tab.
Fixed issues with starting a rename while there was a mouse capture.
Fixed issues with the hide_on_close setting.
Fixed an issue with processing command line options from multiple instances.
Fixed an issue with copying results to the clipboard.

 

This app is the ultimate Da Bomb file searcher. Anytime you might need to sift thru GigaBytes of files this app will unroll a list as long as your arm and Presto! There's that file I been thinking was lost in the jungle.

 

Trend Micro flagging Everything as PUA.Win32.FileSearcher.C

 

Did you ever check out UltraSearch? I can't remember why but I preferred it over Everything.

https://www.jam-software.com/ultrasearch

 

Just gave it a shot.

1) It's a bit slower than Everything
2) Its interface is clunky. I tried adding my external SSD which is Drive Letter E: . Every time I add it, it doesn't appear on the toolbar on the top only C: and D: are shown
3) And I'm definitely not liking an ad within the app and heck, they tucked it under the Advanced Search!:

 

Thanks for testing, @Spartan

 

My pleasure. Always trying to look for the best software and so far nothing even comes close to Everything.

 

I wholeheartedly agree. I have been using Everything for many years and still think it's the best app of its kind.

 

Funny how a 3rd party app can put Windows own built in search even with its magical Indexing to shame! If I search using the Microsoft Search I think I am on a computer from last decade because of how slow the search is.

 

At this point I have reinstalled Everything but I do not let it run. On the occasion I need to use it I launch it and wait for it to update the index, which does not take too long.