Portable AlFileSearch

Over the years your computer can become crowded, with an abundance of important files you might simply find impossible to locate. You can, however, rely on the Windows built-in search engine, but there are also tons of alternatives which aim to be easier and more powerful, with Portable AlFileSearch being a suitable example in this regard.

As the name clearly points out, Portable AlFileSearch comes in a lightweight package which doesn’t even take you through a setup process to make functions work. As such, it can be your personal search engine, regardless of the computer you’re working on. Note that it completely relies on .NET Framework to function.

The set of features shows up in a classic interface design, with several fields and functions to configure in the upper section, while the other half is where all detected items are enlisted. You can choose to filter according to column headers in case there are multiple detected items, and this can be done with name, extension, folder, size, attributes, modification date, and more.

Several preset locations help you easily configure the source of the search, such as recent, desktop, documents, or even root drives. You can choose to include folders, subfolders, and files in your results.

Setting up the search string is a walk in the park, and can be an extension, text string, or the filename plus the extension. More than that, the application can look up text strings of interest inside documents, but text needs to be under the UTF-8 encoding. For quick search sessions, you have a couple of buttons which can be fitted with a fixed search string.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that Portable AlFileSearch comes with a reliable set of tools, which is sure to deliver items of interest in little time. Although there’s no indexer to keep a record of items on your hard drive, detection time doesn’t leave any room for interpretation.