Best Desktop Search Software for Windows
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Compare the Top Desktop Search Software for Windows as of September 2025
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What is Desktop Search Software for Windows?
Desktop search software is a tool that indexes the contents of a user’s computer—such as files, documents, emails, images, and archives—to enable rapid and precise searching across various data types. By building an index, these tools allow for lightning-fast queries, often supporting filters by file type, date, and content keywords. They commonly offer features like content preview, search result management (e.g., tagging or bookmarking), and compatibility with multiple formats including PDFs, Office files, archives, and more. Desktop search tools improve productivity by reducing the manual effort needed to locate files, serving professionals, researchers, students, and everyday users alike. They are designed to provide accurate, fast, and organized results, often operating silently in the background while keeping the index updated in real time. Compare and read user reviews of the best Desktop Search software for Windows currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
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1
Crestadoro
Brynner Industries
Crestadoro is a networkable file indexing and search tool. You can install it on multiple Windows machines, create libraries of documents that reside on each machine, then search and access the files from anywhere on your network. You can install Crestadoro on as many machines as you like, both the indexing engine and the search client are easy to set up. You can optionally use SQL Server to store the data if you don't want to use the internal storage mechanism that comes as standard (though it is pretty wizzy!). The Community Edition is completely free to use, you can have as many libraries as you want, the only limitation is that each library can only hold a maximum of 100 documents. Crestadoro is named in honor of Andrea Crestadoro, a chap who lived a couple of hundred years ago who is generally considered to be the first person to come up with the idea of indexing a book by its content rather than its title. He was also an inventor who came up with some bonkers ideas!Starting Price: £50 -
2
X1 Search
X1
Stop Searching and Start Finding with X1 Search! With X1 Search, you can instantly search and find the exact information you need across all your data sources, saving you up to 2 hours every day! X1 Search, powered by X1's fast-as-you-type search capabilities, provides users the fastest, simplest way to search across emails, attachments, documents, locals files and more in a single search, supercharging your productivity and enabling you to immediately find what you need. This easy-to-use desktop application streamlines user workflow for both business and personal use by rapidly searching years' worth of email, attachments, files and more, providing a consolidated view across all data sources, and producing more accurate results than any search tool you may find on your desktop. X1’s built-in hit highlighting and full-fidelity preview capabilities provide immediate visibility into your results, boosting your ability to instantly find exactly what you need.Starting Price: $79 per year -
3
Slik Safe
Slik Safe
Slik Safe is a Blazing Fast File Experience built to increase efficiency, speed and security. An end-to-end encrypted file storage solution that enables you to store, share and share your files in less than 5 seconds. Your files and folders, be it on cloud apps like Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox etc or local devices, get backed up by connecting to the Slik Safe app on your device. All your files are encrypted on your local device with military grade protection before uploading it on the cloud. The app is designed in a way where it keeps running in the background, constantly backing up connected files and folders in real time. With Slik’s AI, you can retrieve a particular information from a specific file wherein all the details get extracted in Natural Language. So if you want the sum of Column 2 in your datasheet. Just type it, you get the answer.Starting Price: $0 -
4
FileSearchEX
GOFF Concepts
FileSearchEX is the no-nonsense file search utility for Windows 7 and higher. It offers a classic and simplified search interface to make finding files and searching their contents a less frustrating experience. Enjoy the most natural way to locate files and folders on modern operating systems. FileSearchEX is a Windows search tool alternative that provides a standard context menu enabling it to blend in with the OS. This prevents user confusion on how to use the software. With low system requirements, easy network deployment, and locked down user account compatibility, FileSearchEX is the Windows search tool replacement you've been looking for. FileSearchEX runs well with LUA & SRP (limited user and locked down) accounts while still being easy to install by network administrators. Indeed, no installer is needed and admin rights are not required. No matter what software you have on your business systems, users will find it refreshing to have FileSearchEX's simplified search interface.Starting Price: $100 per year -
5
FileBoss
Bekker Technologies
FileBoss for Windows - Find Files & Folders Fast and Search File Content - File Management Tools FileBoss Features Open directories and folders in a part of a second Find all files or directories and folders containing an expression in the blink of an eye. Save, copy and move files in a specific directory within the program or within any application like Excel, Word , Adobe Reader, Open Office writer or calc, Thunderbird, Outlook. Search all files for certain keywords and exclude keywords that they cannot have. You want for example a list of all word files that contain the words engine and car but you do not want the files that contain the word motorcycle. Attach files to emails without clicking through the directory tree, insert pictures in documents from any directory fast.Starting Price: $43.95 one-time fee -
6
SeekFast
Slaviana soft
SeekFast did a tremendous job for us – it searched in our Word documents as well as in our software projects. The tool helped us to search in thousands of files in just seconds. We integrated different technologies in SeekFast for intelligent search and retrieval and for extracting text from different file types. Each of these file types has a different, sometimes very complex structure, so our development took a relatively long time. We gradually added options for searching Excel files, and later for searching Open Document Format documents, such as OpenOffice Writer files. In return, we got a product that is universal enough to be able to search in all the most frequently used documents on any computer. In recent years SeekFast has become one of the most popular desktop search tools. SeekFast can search in documents written in any language. It is already used all over the world by over 50,000 users, and their numbers are increasing daily.Starting Price: $57 one-time payment -
7
Everything
Voidtools
"Everything" is search engine that locates files and folders by filename instantly for Windows. Unlike Windows search "Everything" initially displays every file and folder on your computer (hence the name "Everything"). You type in a search filter to limit what files and folders are displayed. "Everything" only indexes file and folder names and generally takes a few seconds to build its database. A fresh install of Windows 10 (about 120,000 files) will take about 1 second to index. Everything can search file content with the content, search function. File content is not indexed, searching content is slow. A fresh install of Windows 10 (about 120,000 files) will use about 14 MB of ram and less than 9 MB of disk space. 1,000,000 files will use about 75 MB of ram and 45 MB of disk space. Your search windows will reflect changes made to the file system. "Everything" will run on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10. -
8
eSearch Pro
ElectronArt Design Ltd
eSearch Pro combines advanced information retrieval with an in integrated AI-Assistant to enhance productivity for professionals who need to quickly find information from a wide range of data sources. Now FREE and open source! Unique features include: AI-Assistant that can use multiple local or remote LLMs. User translatable with free Language File Editor. Switch languages immediately. Scrollable indexed word list. View source code with hit highlighting, syntax highlighting & line numbers. View images that contain geolocation metadata (GPS) on built-in map. MCP Client built in. Other power user features: Search with a 'list of words' for eDiscovery. Multilingual stemming, user-defined & pre-defined synonyms. Numeric pattern matching with regex. Limit indexing by file types. Plugins to connect to external data-sources. TARILIO Pro is a version of eSearch Pro with additional closed source code for commercial usage.Starting Price: $0 -
9
CodeDefine Where
CodeDefine
CodeDefine Where is a robust file search and management tool designed for efficient organization of digital assets. It enables users to search, filter, and group files based on metadata and attributes, allowing for highly precise file retrieval. The software supports wildcard and regular expressions for advanced search patterns, ensuring fast and accurate results. Key features include duplicate file detection, customizable search filters, and the ability to perform actions (move, rename, delete) directly from search results. With its powerful metadata-driven search capabilities, "Where" is the ideal solution for managing large volumes of files with ease.Starting Price: $39 lifetime license -
10
Copernic Desktop Search
Copernic Technologies
There are few desktop search solutions on the market that offer the depth, relevance and context that Copernic’s Desktop Search can provide. It’s one thing to conduct fast searches. It’s a whole other ballgame finding exactly what you’re looking for. No IT experience required! Simply install our application and read our guides! With Copernic’s intuitive interface, you’ll be up-and-searching in no time flat. Thanks to Copernic’s advanced keyword map (index), unlock a wealth of information that is currently buried in your PC. We support over 150 file extensions and 11 languages! Once you have built your index in just a few steps, Copernic will immediately display search results that are the most aligned with your keyword search. Copernic does NOT collect any data. You can rest assured knowing all of your information is secure and cannot be access by any third party.Starting Price: $49.95 one-time payment -
11
Agent Ransack
Mythicsoft
Agent Ransack is a free file search tool for finding files on your PC or network drives. It has a Lite mode, which is free for both personal and commercial use but also a Professional mode that includes optional pay-for features. Found text is shown with highlighted keywords so you don’t need to waste time opening each file looking for the right information. Support for Perl compatible regular expressions. A ‘locked down’ version of Agent Ransack is available for environments where the end-user is not allowed to search their local PC. For corporate environments, we have a more ‘gentle’ branding of Agent Ransack called FileLocator Lite.Starting Price: $59.95 one-time payment -
12
Listary
Listary
With Listary you’ll never have to go through the tedious process of browsing through folders, looking for the right file names and hunting through Windows’ limited menus ever again. Listary puts smart search technology at your fingertips so you can keep working without dealing with cumbersome native Windows navigation. With a lightweight interface that doesn’t bog your system down and strain system resources, Listary puts Windows Explorer on steroids. Copy or move files to any folder from any folder with easy context menu commands. Quickly browse your recent app and file history to continue working where you left off. Create a favorites list of commonly used files and apps for fast access. Instantly find & launch programs with a quick keyboard command.Starting Price: $19.95 one-time payment -
13
UltraSearch
Desktop Search
Improve your workflow with our ultra-fast solution for convenient file search, UltraSearch Professional is available now! The must-have Windows Search alternative reduces your waiting time to an absolute minimum as it shows you the first results while you are still typing. Take advantage as you search for files not only on hard disks but also on network drives. Flexibly individualize your search with your own search parameters to make the process even faster and more comfortable. Benefit from UltraSearch Professional with its Ribbon surface, quick-access to convenience functions, PDF and Excel export, the Query Composer and many more exclusive features and let us maximize your user experience! The simple user interface provides fast and easy access, Windows integration and offers excellent performance for your file search. Use the efficient search syntax and optimize your search results by combining search attributes. The Query Composer will assist you.Starting Price: $25.95 per year -
14
FileSeek
FileSeek
FileSeek is an easy-to-use file search app that includes advanced functionality for power users! Search through files using simple queries or regular expressions. You can even sync your search settings between computers. FileSeek uses multithreading technology to improve the speed of its searches, making it able to out-perform any Windows search. With no background search indexing, FileSeek will never affect the performance of your computer while closed. Improve your workload by saving your search criteria as a search profile. Save, load, or modify your most common searches to make your life easier. With FileSeek’s tabbed search interface, there is no longer any need to wait for a search to be complete before starting a new one. You can start a search in another tab without opening another window, keeping your taskbar neat and tidy. Use FileSeek’s query language or regular expressions to search for specific information inside files or folders.Starting Price: $15 one-time payment -
15
TextSeek
Xiamen Zest Company
TextSeek is a professional full-text desktop search tool. TextSeek can search filename and file content easily and quickly. It supports PDF, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, keynote and other formats. Features: 1. Minimalist design. The search box and results are as intuitive as Google, and the operation is convenient. You can preview the file content with highlighted keywords, and you can quickly browse the search results with ctrl+arrow shortcut keys. 2. Double search modes. Users can search directly without index (Easy mode), or index specific directories to speed up searching (Zone mode). 3. Cross-platform and multi-language. It supports Windows and Mac OS systems. It performs full-text search with no omission, and it can search through all languages by using UNICODE. The user interface supports Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Arabic and other languages. 4. Multiple search options. The results can be filtered by document type, file name, or file content.Starting Price: $19.9 per three years -
16
FileLocator Pro
Mythicsoft
Whether it’s a line of source code, an entry in a log file, a legal brief, or even just a Christmas letter to your family, FileLocator Pro helps you find things fast. Its unique features make it possible to dig out information in even the most obscure file formats. Our client list includes many high-profile organizations. Find out why so many people are switching to FileLocator Pro today! Includes syntax highlighting for easier reading of source code, supports most programming languages. Highly efficient search algorithms mean that you spend less time waiting for results. Indexes can be created for instant searching through GB of data. Documents, images, and source code can be reviewed quickly using unique data navigation functionality. Frequently used searches can be saved as favorites for fast loading. Search through emails, contacts, calendar items over multiple PST files in one go. Share your results with others using the printing and exporting features.Starting Price: $44.95 one-time payment -
17
XYplorer
XYplorer
XYplorer is a file manager for Windows. It features tabbed browsing, a powerful file search, a versatile preview, a highly customizable interface, optional dual pane, and a large array of unique ways to efficiently automate frequently recurring tasks. It’s fast, light, and portable. XYplorer is a portable file manager. It doesn’t require any installation, stores all configuration data in the application data folder, and running it doesn’t change your system or registry. Take it with you and start it from a USB stick. File management to go. XYplorer has been designed to make you faster. Numerous usability enhancements in an attractive interface help to streamline your workflow and increase your efficiency. You will definitely save a lot of time. You can fine-tune the app to look and behave exactly as you want it. This ranges from fonts and colors to custom toolbar buttons and even file icons and program associations. And every bit of it is fully portable.Starting Price: $39.95 one-time payment -
18
Wise Toys
WiseCleaner
As a set of utilities for greater productivity, Wise Toys has built-in a powerful local file search engine and many plugins, covering all aspects of life and learning, providing many conveniences and saving time for Windows users. Easily open the main window of Wise Toys at any time by using the global combinations of keys. The plugin is a collection of practical gadgets, saving your time & efforts, and helps you to increase your productivity within no time. A local file search engine that supports search plugins, installed programs, documents, pictures, videos, music, etc. An advanced tool to bring a revolutionary change in computer usability and turn the complex task into a simple way with less-efforts. Increase the efficiency of using Windows PC & laptop. Search is a local file search engine that supports search plugins, installed programs, documents, pictures, etc.Starting Price: Free -
19
Directory Report
AMB Software
Show disk usage, directory printer, find duplicate files, rename files, and maintain your files - all in 1 tool Directory Report looks like the MS-Explorer but always shows the directory's size. This makes it easy to drill down to directories which are using all your disk space. Duplicate files are found by any combination of the same: Name, Size, Cyclic Redundancy Checksum (CRC32) or Comparing byte by byte Finds duplicate directories Multiple file rename Multiple file change date Multiple file change owner Powerful filters and report to many formats (Printer, Text file, Clipboard, Excel (CSV) file, Excel program, HTML file or XML file) Print a directory list and file list of an entire disk or a list of directories Prints DLL and EXE version information Prints AVI, MP3, MSI, WAV and MS-Office propertiesStarting Price: $25 -
20
MightyGrep
Sunbound Software LLC
MightyGrep is a file finding and text searching application. File filters allow DOS semantics (wildcard * ?) or regex syntax. Users can view results in either a provided external editor or the built-in file viewer. Search results can be exported to either a file or clipboard. This program does not rely on filesystem indexing to function. This program searches both binary and plaintext.Starting Price: $9.99 -
21
Exselo Desktop
Exselo
A tool that allows users to search, collaborate and share data in real time using encrypted peer-to-peer technology. Effectively search and find the information you want from files and emails on your computer, cloud stores and network. Quickly share your information with friends and colleagues, and securely communicate with them. The Exselo Desktop Free License enables powerful search, result refinement, secure peer-to-peer communication and collaboration functionality for an individual user. The Exselo Desktop Professional License extends the free license with more functionality and features for an individual user and ensures priority on any support request. The Exselo Desktop Enterprise License is for organizations where software is managed and controlled by administrators and Exselo Destop is to be used by multiple users.Starting Price: $1.95/month/user -
22
Lookeen
Axonic Informationssysteme
Your time is too valuable to waste on inefficient and ineffective search – use Lookeen for fast and effective full-text file and email search. The multiple award-winning professional desktop search solution finds all important information for you in record time. Whether searching in Microsoft® Outlook®, PST archives, on Exchange servers, Public folders, on the desktop, in the network or in virtual desktop environments: Lookeen finds every email, every document and every photo immediately, no matter where it’s saved. Lookeen is designed so that the load on your computer, network and Exchange Servers remains as low as possible. Thanks to various settings in the search tool, Lookeen indexing is fast and reliable on older Windows® systems too. The intuitive user interface makes using Lookeen child's play. Easily view your data in the search results list, the advanced filters and highlighting system means that your emails, documents and folders are one click away.Starting Price: $69 one-time payment -
23
SETI Finder
Cylab
Finding the exact document or record you need can be a time-consuming proposition. You might be responding to an RFP with a tight deadline and you’re having trouble finding the documents you need to pull your proposal together. Or, you might be an attorney preparing a case and finding the correct reference documents is a challenge. Or, you spend all day searching your HR or membership database, but if you make a data entry error, your software can’t find the record you’re looking for. SETI™ Finder is an intelligent tool that – in one interface – allows users to find documents on the desktop and network and records in your databases in seconds. Our fuzzy search capability is so accurate, even if you juxtapose letters or omit a number from a zip code, SETI™ still produces exact results. SETI™ can handle missing, extraneous, and incorrectly sequenced characters in both user-entered search strings as well as in the database. -
24
Searchable
Searchable
Stop wasting 20% of your workweek clicking through emails, chats, cloud and local storage for the files you need. Introducing Searchable.ai, one search for all your files. Unified search across local, cloud storage and apps. Google Docs, Microsoft Office, Slack, Dropbox, that one sticky note in that one Powerpoint, instantly search your hard drive and web apps in a single view. Precise results with instant previews. Searchable pulls up the exact page containing the information you need. No more opening random documents and skimming. Sometimes you’re not looking for a file, you need an answer that is somewhere in your files. In that case, just ask. For example, "What was our revenue projection last quarter?" or "When does our lease expire?" Searchable will find the answer. Searchable.ai is a unified document hub that allows users to quickly search and access work documents across multiple devices, email providers, cloud services (Google Drive, DropBox, OneDrive, etc.) -
25
Duplicate & Same Files Searcher
Download Crew
Duplicate & Same Files Searcher is an advanced tool for locating and dealing with duplicate files. The program locates files with identical content only; unlike some similar tools, you can't compare files just on their names, dates or size. This makes Duplicate & Same Files Searcher relatively slow, as it must read and process every single file in your selected group. Fortunately, there are some ways to improve performance. You can direct the program to scan a particular folder tree only, to examine files of a particular type, to ignore others, to check only files of a defined size. There are some options you won't often see elsewhere. You can have the program check for (or ignore) differences in alternate data streams, to ignore different ID3 tags in MP3s, to skip symbolic links (or not). When the scan is complete, each set of duplicates is listed, along with their file names, paths, size, dates, even their number of fragments (whether they're fragmented or not). -
26
DocFetcher Pro
DocFetcher Pro
DocFetcher Pro 1.15 has just been released. This is just a minor maintenance release with fixes for three bugs: Two crashes related to tar.gz and 7z archives, respectively, and one minor issue with the preview pane. For details, please see the changelog. There hasn’t been much activity on DocFetcher Pro lately, mainly because of the focus on the upcoming DocFetcher Pro Server. Another reason is that most bugs in DocFetcher Pro seem to have already been fixed. For those not in the know, DocFetcher Pro Server is a variant of DocFetcher Pro that is intended to be run as an indexing and search server, and that can be accessed by one or more clients remotely through the web browser. Regarding the release date of DocFetcher Pro Server, there’s bad news, unfortunately: It will likely not be ready by the end of 2021, as previously announced.Starting Price: $40 one-time payment -
27
Launchy
Launchy
Launchy is a free cross-platform utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager. Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes! Launchy has just been released for Android in Winter 2021. It takes an entirely new spin on finding and starting your apps, so give it a try! A clean and fast interface to find and launch the app you're looking for. Forget grids of icons that are constantly changing. No more slow and clunky keyboard. Find your apps by name with our novel paddle system. Intelligently presents your apps in frequency and recency order. You can then type in a few keys of the program you are searching for and hit enter once it has been found. You can also make Launchy disappear again by hitting escape or alt+space. -
28
Wise JetSearch
WiseCleaner
Quickly search everything like files, videos, images, music on local drives, and removable drives, both FAT and exFAT drive is supported. Simple and easy to use is one of the most obvious features of Wise JetSearch. Select the drives, type the file name, and then click the search button (or press the Enter key). Just need only 3 clicks can find the file that you are searching for. The other obvious feature is its amazing speed. Thanks to the index, Wise JetSearch can search 1,000,000 items in just a few seconds, locate the target files in milliseconds. Far faster than the built-in search feature in Windows. Wise JetSearch enables you to search all of your available hard disks and partitions, such as the secondary disks, removable disks, and other disks. It does not matter whether the drives you are searching are formatted as NTFS, FAT (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32) or exFAT as Wise JetSearch supports all of these formats. -
29
Quick Search
Glarysoft
When you type any file name, subject or keywords into its search box, the results screen will display kinds of related files on that information in less than a second. At the same time, it will list a number of similar files you do not need. Quick Search offers a search filter to limit search range and narrow down the search results for higher working efficiency. On Quick Search's lighting quick interface, you will clearly see two major controls: the search box and the real-time displaying panel. An important aspect of managing computer files is rapidly locating documents and folders. When the built-in search that Windows comes with is not enough, a blazing fast solution is Quick Search.Starting Price: $19.97 one-time payment -
30
ExplorerMax
ExplorerMax
The chrome-styled tabbing feature enables you to open multiple files at the same window. It’s easy to switch from one to another. As for your favorites, you may add bookmarks with a drag-and-drop. In this way, you’ll get a better overview and always focus on the key part. If you want to track the file you managed at a certain moment, go and check Timeline. Here, you can find your browsing history classified into four groups -- Today, Yesterday, Latest Week, Latest Month. Then, the parent path is soon accessible. Moreover, for unwanted history, clearing them all or selectively is up to you. In ExplorerMax, you never bother to suffer from a slow search. As long as you enter the keyword in the search box and set the target file type, you can get grouped results in a second. When you have requests for fluent interactions between two tabs, dual-pane is a great solution to display an overview and save your time from frequent tab-switching.Starting Price: $5.95 per month