In today’s world of data abundance, efficient file and folder organization has become both a necessity and a challenge. Whether you're a casual user, developer, IT professional, or digital archivist, locating the right files at the right time can make or break your productivity. While traditional search tools like Windows Search provide basic file search functionality, they often fall short when it comes to precision, speed, and customization.
That’s where Advanced File & Folder Search comes into play—a powerful utility tailored for users who demand more control, speed, and functionality in their file management workflow.
Advanced File & Folder Search is a powerful utility that helps users locate files/folders based on a wide variety of parameters. These include filename, extension, size, date, file attributes, and even regular expressions. Unlike basic OS file explorers, the tool offers filters and query builders to enhance the accuracy and speed of file/folder retrieval.
Filters are constraints or rules applied to narrow down the results of a search operation. Rather than scanning all files blindly, a filter allows the tool to examine only those files that meet specific conditions. By narrowing down the results, filters reduce the chances of false positives and improve precision.
Our searcher supports multiple filter types that can be combined for powerful results, including:
1. File Type Filters:
- Narrow down results to specific file types like docx, pdf, jpg, etc.
- Supports multiple types at once (e.g., docx, xlsx, pptx).
2. Folder Filters:
- Filter by depth (only top-level or recursive search): include/exclude subfolders
- Restrict the search to specific folders: exclude folders
3. Attribute Filters:
These refer to file system-level metadata such as:
- Hidden
- Read-only
- System
Use checkboxes to include/exclude these easily in the UI.
4. Name and Pattern Filters:
Search based on the file or folder name, with optional pattern matching:
- Contain / Not contain
- Start with / End with
- Match whole words
- Regex (regular expression): advanced pattern matching for power users.
- Case-sensitive or insensitive: depending on settings.
5. Date Filters:
Locate files based on creation, modification, or last access date:
- Before/After/On specific date: e.g, created before 2024-12-01
- Within a date range: e.g, from 2023-01-01 to 2024-12-31
6. Size Filters:
Useful when looking for unusually large or small files:
- Greater than / Less than / Equal to: e.g, files larger than 10MB
- Between a range: e.g, 1MB to 100MB
- Custom units: KB, MB, GB.
For power users, regular expressions (regex) enable extremely flexible and complex search patterns. Regex lets you specify complex patterns in just a few characters. Instead of searching multiple times with different keywords, one regex pattern can capture everything you need. Examples:
🔍 ^invoice_\d{4}_Q[1-4]$ matches invoice_2023_Q1, invoice_2024_Q3, etc.
🔍 ^project_[a-z]{3}$ matches project_xyz, project_opd, etc.
Regex is extremely powerful but requires a learning curve. Learn how to use regular expression.
The searcher also provides a clean UI for sorting search results. Just click column headers like File Name, File Type, File Size or Modified to toggle sorting order (ascending or descending). Sorting helps users prioritize, compare, and clean up files. It’s not just about making things look nice—it’s about making decisions faster.
Features:
- Recursive folder scanning: Deep search into nested directories.
- Narrow down searches using multiple filters: filename, extension, size, date, file attributes, etc.
- Regex matching: Use regular expressions to locate files with specific naming patterns.
- Real-time progress indicator: View what’s being scanned.
- Can cancel the searching process at any time.
- Allow sorting search results.
- Results export: Export to CSV, XLS, or XLSX for analysis or reporting.
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