File Searcher

When you need to quickly find a document, file, or even a shortcut on your crowded PC, the first tool to turn to is inevitably the default Windows search function. It might not leave up to expectations most of the time, in which case you can try out some third-party alternatives, just like File Searcher.

The application gets installed in little time, letting you put it to good use before you realize. Before this is possible, you need to check whether .NET Framework is on your computer, because you need to grab it otherwise, since it’s a mandatory Windows feature for the application to work.

On the visual side of things, the application doesn’t come with any shiny elements to distract you, but the interface is fitted with a custom design, and even a few themes to choose from. The general structure lets you quickly accommodate, with rules and other options stored in tabs, and a large list which shows detected files.

By default, the application doesn’t know exactly where to look for your files, so you need to add one or more folders to the list. A related option can be activated to also include subfolders in the process. Sadly, the target location is not indexed, and it can take a bit of time to find items of interest on large volumes.

After setting up location, you need to tell the application what exactly to look for, with additional option to also include a data range, to narrow down results. You can either look for text inside files, or simply try to locate according to name. What’s more, you can set up multiple rules for a single session.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that File Searcher comes with good intentions, but isn’t quite what you expected to find in an alternative to the Windows default search tool. The lack of an indexer forces you to spend time to set multiple rules to narrow down results and have files detected a little faster.