The latest Windows Search is, in theory, a hugely powerful tool that enables you to construct all kinds of complex and detailed searches. So as well as entering wildcards, you can modify your results by looking for particular file sizes, types, modification dates, content, and even, say, MP3 files tagged with a particular year, or photos taken on a certain date.
In practice, you do have to remember a lengthy list of search filters to make all this work, and even then it won’t always be easy to find the files you need. So if you’re looking for a simpler alternative, which also has plenty of powerful options, then you might want to consider trying NirSoft’s SearchMyFiles.
Launch the program for the first time and you’ll see there’s no need to remember obscure filters here -- everything you can do has been crammed onto a single settings dialog. So you can search on file wildcards, by content (text or binary), size, attributes, creation/ modification/ last access time and more, just by choosing the relevant options.
Your searches can then be modified in some interesting ways. You’re able to search from multiple base folders, for instance; there’s the option to get very precise on the subfolder search depth you need (15? no problem); and the program makes it easy to exclude some folders and file types entirely, if you like. There’s also the option to scan NTFS symbolic links and junction points, and you can decide whether you want to return files, folders, or both.
And surprisingly, SearchMyFiles can even be used to track down duplicate files that might be cluttering your system and wasting hard drive space; just choose “Duplicates Search” from the search mode list and point the program at whatever drives or folders you’d like to check.
SearchMyFiles doesn’t index document content, and so it’s never going to compete with specialist search tools on performance. It does make it easy to construct some complex searches, though. And, as usual with NirSoft tools, it’s also tiny (53KB) and portable, so if you like the program then you can carry it around with you for use on any convenient PC.
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