Find a text file containing a particular phrase.

Subscriber43 · Feb 7, 2023

In a folder on my data drive, I have hundreds of text (.txt) files I have created or otherwise accumulated over the past decade or so.
A lot of times, I want to find a file containing particular phrases or other content (e.g. all files that contain the word "recursive").

I've tried temporarily copying the folder to the C:\ drive, which is indexed by Windows (including content), but searches always come up empty.
I've tried software like Everything, Wizfile etc. No luck.

An Internet search brings up pages and pages about Windows indexing service, but nothing relevant to my needs.

Any suggestions on accomplishing this are welcome.
Thanks.

Ghot · Feb 7, 2023

Subscriber43 said:
In a folder on my data drive, I have hundreds of text (.txt) files I have created or otherwise accumulated over the past decade or so.
A lot of times, I want to find a file containing particular phrases or other content (e.g. all files that contain the word "recursive").

I've tried temporarily copying the folder to the C:\ drive, which is indexed by Windows (including content), but searches always come up empty.
I've tried software like Everything, Wizfile etc. No luck.

An Internet search brings up pages and pages about Windows indexing service, but nothing relevant to my needs.

Any suggestions on accomplishing this are welcome.
Thanks.

Read #2, here...

How to Search Text in Multiple Word Files - SeekFast Blog

Contents 1. SeekFast 2. File Explorer 3. PowerGrep 4. Agent Ransack 5. DocFetcher 6. Conclusion Microsoft Word is the world's most widely-used document creation and processing program, with a market share of 42%, followed by Google Docs and Microsoft PowerPoint. The main file formats of Word...

seekfast.org

I think the "and contents" part is what you need.
I would probably turn it back off after you're finished using it.