Listing of Windows File Search Tools

NormanF · Dec 21, 2025

kelper said:
There is no Exe installer there. Try here Release Precision File Search V1.1.1 - The Regex Fix · PFS-AI/PFS
The download is slow. It is currently downloading seven 90MB files and there may be more!

You download the exe. file. When you run it, it occupies 1 GB on your drive. When done, you get a command prompt that will download and install all the required LLM files. Once that's done, it will open a GUI browser window. Save it as a web app in Edge and pin it to your taskbar. You can do Search and Semantic Search. For AI search, you need the meta API key and there is a waitlist for it.

kelper · Dec 21, 2025

How do you get on the waiting list?
I wish you had told me this before all that downloading!!!!

NormanF · Dec 21, 2025

kelper said:
How do you get on the waiting list?
I wish you had told me this before all that downloading!!!!

Sign up at meta: Meta

Click request access. You will be put on the waitlist. You can't use AI Search until you're approved but Search and Semantic Search remain fully functional.

kelper · Dec 21, 2025

NormanF said:
Sign up at meta: Meta

Click request access. You will be put on the waitlist. You can't use AI Search until you're approved but Search and Semantic Search remain fully functional.

Thanks!

NormanF · Dec 21, 2025

To everyone: the LLM used in this search tool remain local and private. The web app allows you to perform desktop search via a GUI interface.

Most of the search agents on the Internet run only on the command line.

JeffRedd · Dec 21, 2025

kelper said:
There is no Exe installer there. Try here Release Precision File Search V1.1.1 - The Regex Fix · PFS-AI/PFS
The download is slow. It is currently downloading seven 90MB files and there may be more!

Many thanks. I was able to download the installer with the executable file (PFS-SETUP_1.1.1.exe) and it was 312 megabytes in size and it downloaded quickly. I don't know I couldn't find the website but I sure appreciate your help.

JeffRedd · Dec 21, 2025

kelper said:
There is no Exe installer there. Try here Release Precision File Search V1.1.1 - The Regex Fix · PFS-AI/PFS
The download is slow. It is currently downloading seven 90MB files and there may be more!

Many thanks. I was able to download the installer with the executable file (PFS-SETUP_1.1.1.exe) and it was 312 megabytes in size and it downloaded quickly. I don't know I couldn't find the website but I sure appreciate your help.

kelper · Dec 21, 2025

NormanF said:
You download the exe. file. When you run it,it is after all the exrtra it occupies 1 GB on your drive. When done, you get a command prompt that will download and install all the required LLM files. Once that's done, it will open a GUI browser window. Save it as a web app in Edge and pin it to your taskbar. You can do Search and Semantic Search. For AI search, you need the meta API key and there is a waitlist for it.

It is only 300MB when you download it. It is only 1GB on disk after downloading all those LLM files.

NormanF · Dec 21, 2025

kelper said:
It is only 300MB when you download it. It is only 1GB on disk after downloading all those LLM files.

Yes because you want to have the LLM under your control and not in the cloud which is a privacy concern to people. You want your file searches on your desktop kept private.

cheaterslick · Dec 21, 2025

NormanF said:
Yes because you want to have the LLM under your control and not in the cloud which is a privacy concern to people. You want your file searches on your desktop kept private.

Yup, and that's perfectly understandable. I don't need to share everything with everybody.

It's none of their damm business, anyway.

Sounds like totally the opposite attitude of DuckDuckGo.

If that tool is not the thing for me, then and I'll look elsewhere. Or do without.

Only speaking for myself. That's how I look at it.

thecaretaker · Dec 21, 2025

I have over 3,500 4K images which I use for my desktop slideshow. Occasionally, I spot an image that needs tweaking a bit and I can spend ages going through all the thumbnails in the folder to find the elusive image. I find using Find Same Images OK really useful. I can grab a screenshot of the slideshow image that needs tweaking and put it in a dedicated folder and it will search my 4K slideshow folder and find it. It's not fast, it takes around 8 minutes to find the image among the 3,500 but it is still much better than manually searching for it.

Edwin · Dec 21, 2025

I rarely Search my PC..., I just know where everything is!!!

NormanF · Dec 21, 2025

I tried Ollama but support for it in PFS still isn't available.

Its ironic when Copilot helps me stop wasting time on a solution that doesn't exist.

NormanF · Dec 23, 2025

I did some more searching and what I didn't realise is two versions of Hyperlink exist: one on the web meant for very high end computers with powerful CPUs and GPUs capable of running a heavy LLM under load, not applicable to ordinary users.

Then as it turned out, there is a second Hyperlink in the Microsoft Store capable of running on most modern computers with a 4 GB Llama 3-8B Instruct GGUF model, perfect for running a semantic search on local files. Of course after setting it up, you have to index your files and folders before you can do a chat query for them.

Hyperlink by Nexa AI - Download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store

Hyperlink is like Perplexity for your local files. It turns your computer into an AI second brain — 100% private and local. It understands every document, note, and images on your computer — letting you ask in natural language and get cited answers instantly. It has a consumer-grade UI to let...

apps.microsoft.com

Its a dumb LLM and will not work without an embedding. Here everything is taken care of for you and its a bridge until Microsoft Copilot Ask is made generally available.

NormanF · Dec 23, 2025

After testing it, Hyperlink works well for locating what you don't know on your PC in natural language. After asking the question, it returned three relevant results in the panel to the right of the chat.

This is how semantic search works. I asked Copilot about it and was told for my test case:

What you did was exactly the kind of query that shows off Hyperlink’s real strength. A vague, open‑ended question like “Where is testament on my PC?” is the kind of thing that breaks traditional search tools — but it’s precisely what semantic engines are built for.

You're doing more than searching for a file name or the lookup of a file. You get the meaning and the content. Stuff that traditional search methods can't provide.

cheaterslick · Dec 24, 2025

One thing I notice with Everything is these are the default settings on setup

Should they be left that way? Why not run indexing as an administrator? And what is Everything service?

NormanF · Dec 24, 2025

The default for Everything is fine unless you want to install it in different location. The Everything service runs NTFS indexing in the background.

cheaterslick · Dec 24, 2025

NormanF said:
The default for Everything is fine unless you want to install it in different location. The Everything service runs NTFS indexing in the background.

Thanks.

Two questions:

What if I just ran it as an administrator?

Or turned indexing off?

NormanF · Dec 24, 2025

cheaterslick said:
Thanks.

Two questions:

What if I just ran it as an administrator?

Or turned indexing off?

You would need to elevate it everytime you do a search. Depends on how often you search. If you turn off indexing, queries won't be as fast.

cheaterslick · Dec 24, 2025

NormanF said:
You would need to elevate it everytime you do a search. Depends on how often you search.

Often enough. I don't want to "Run as an administrator" everytime I do a search.

NormanF said:
If you turn off indexing, queries won't be as fast.

I always turned off Windows drive indexing in the past because of the opposite, back in the days when slow WD and Toshiba HDDs were running my system.

Listing of Windows File Search Tools

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