from Hacker News

Fsearch, a fast file search utility for Unix-like systems

by karlicoss on 12/17/23, 9:19 PM with 95 comments

• by dzek69 on 12/17/23, 9:56 PM

  This is great tool, I use it everyday, but far from it's Windows based original Everything.

  Also this is anbandoned apparently, which makes me extra sad, because it lacks few crucial features like: - being able to just remove a file from the index if you delete it from the app directly (insted it shows a window how it "soon" gonna be implemented) - while i understand that indexing service is more complex job - at least caching the index would be nice, because right now when i start the app i have to wait for it to index everything again, but usually i search for files that exists for a long time, not these that was created between my fsearch uses

  So yeah. Cool dead and incomplete piece of software ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ From time to time I look for better alternative, if you happen to know one - let me know.

• by Beijinger on 12/18/23, 1:06 AM

  "Performance. On Windows I really like to use Everything Search Engine. It provides instant results as you type for all your files and lots of useful features (regex, filters, bookmarks, ...). On Linux I couldn't find anything that's even remotely as fast and powerful."

  https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/pages/index-recoll.htm...

  "Recoll finds documents based on their contents as well as their file names."

  "Recoll will index an MS-Word document stored as an attachment to an e-mail message inside a Thunderbird folder archived in a Zip file (and more… ). It will also help you search for it with a friendly and powerful interface, and let you open a copy of a PDF at the right page with two clicks. There is little that will remain hidden on your disk."

• by eviks on 12/18/23, 8:26 AM

  Do any of the modern filesystem on Linux cover this very important use case of instant search anywhere like the good old NTFS does (that's how you get Everything's awesome performance)?

• by apt-get on 12/17/23, 10:29 PM

  fsearch is the best locate front-end for Linux, but sadly, I've got many gripes with it... crappy drag'n'drop, no daemonization to minimize to system tray, closing the app resets the clipboard for some reason (EXTREMELY annoying when you open it to copy a file path), the list is long. Not to mention that locate itself doesn't auto-update the index with fs changes.

  I miss Everything :(

• by CyberDildonics on 12/17/23, 10:47 PM

  How does this search filesystems quickly on linux?

• by jcul on 12/17/23, 11:15 PM

  I was wondering what this adds over mlocate. It seems it's a GUI only / GUI first tool.

  The GitHub page recommends mlocate for a CLI version.

• by WebTDs on 12/18/23, 9:01 AM

  My favorite search tool on windows is Agent Ransack https://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

  Searches not only file names but in contents as well. Also blazing fast in my experience.

• by croemer on 12/17/23, 9:47 PM

  Unix-like apparently does not include macOS here

  Edit: Or does it? https://ports.macports.org/port/fsearch/details/

• by liotier on 12/18/23, 3:25 PM

  How does it compare to Baloosearch ? Baloo and KDE Plasma go nicely together !

• by ensocode on 12/18/23, 8:08 AM

  Does it support find in files? I am using catfish and looking for alternatives but find in files would be a must have. Some are recommending fzf (rg, fd). What is your search workflow and what tools do you use?

• by smcleod on 12/18/23, 12:52 PM

  It’d be interesting if this could integrate with plocate (mlocate’s replacement) which is incredibly quick at indexing and returning results but relatively basic.

• by einpoklum on 12/17/23, 10:49 PM

  I like that the author has not done away with the menu, like certain software projects which shall not be named but begin with GN and end with ME.

• by QuadrupleA on 12/18/23, 1:47 AM

  I gave up on Desktop Linux unfortunately, but this is a great Everything replacement for those who love it on Windows.

• by pjmlp on 12/18/23, 8:27 AM

  Looks quite nice, brownie points for being native.

• by carpo on 12/18/23, 7:55 AM

  E a d

• by aikinai on 12/18/23, 12:41 AM

  For anyone looking for a Mac equivalent, there's GoToFile[0].

  As far as I've seen, this is the only app for Mac that doesn't just reuse Spotlight search (which I find to be terrible). I looked for exactly this type of app for years before finding it, and when I did, it didn't seem real with the old-fashioned website and zero mentions on sites like HN. But I can assure that it works great and it's maintained. I just wish the author would promote it better so it gets more attention and isn't so hard to find.

  [0] https://www.soma-zone.com/GoToFile/