Windows Search Too Slow? This Free Tool Can Find Almost Any File in Seconds

If you've ever spent several minutes looking for a file on your Windows laptop, there's a small free tool you should know about. It's called Everything, and despite the slightly unusual name, it does one thing extremely well:

It finds files and folders incredibly quickly.

Unlike the normal Windows search experience, Everything builds a database of your file and folder names and lets you search through them almost instantly. VoidTools says indexing a fresh Windows installation with around 250,000 files can take only a few seconds.

For students, developers, content creators and professionals who have thousands of files scattered across their laptops, this can be a huge time saver.

What is Everything?

Everything is a lightweight Windows search application developed by VoidTools.

It indexes file and folder names and paths, allowing you to type part of a filename and immediately see matching results. It also monitors filesystem changes so the results can stay updated in real time.

For example, suppose you remember that you saved a document called:

Afritechconnect_Article_2026.docx

but you have no idea where you saved it. Instead of manually opening Documents, Downloads and other folders, simply open Everything and type: Afritechconnect

The matching file should appear immediately.

How to Install Everything

Go to the official VoidTools website and download Everything for Windows.

Download Everything from VoidTools

There are installer and portable versions available, including 64-bit options. After installation, Everything will build its initial index. Once that is complete, you're ready to search.

How to Find a File

The simplest method is just to type part of the filename.

For example: invoice

Everything will display files and folders containing "invoice" in their names. You don't need to remember the complete filename.

You can search for:

• report

• photo

• resume

• invoice

• project

• video

• database

and narrow the results from there.

Search for Specific File Types

This is where Everything becomes even more useful.

Want to find every PDF?

Type:

*.pdf

Want all Excel files?

*.xlsx

Want every MP4 video?

*.mp4

Want photos?

*.jpg |

*.png

The | operator means OR, so the last search returns JPG or PNG files.

Find Recently Modified Files

This is particularly useful for developers and content creators.

You can search:

dm:today

to find files modified today.

Or:

dm:thisweek

to find files modified this week.

Imagine you've been editing several files but can't remember which folder you saved them in.

This can save you a lot of searching.

What About Searching Inside Documents?

There's an important distinction here. Everything is primarily designed to search file and folder names, which is why it is so fast.

It can also search file contents using the "content:" function, but content searching is considerably slower because file contents aren't handled the same way as the filename index.

So if you're trying to find:

Which document contains the phrase Lagos State University?

that's a different type of search from:

Find the document named Lagos University.

For the second task, Everything is extremely fast.

Why African PC Users Should Know About It

For many students, freelancers and small businesses across Africa, laptops aren't always equipped with huge SSDs.

It's common to have: Downloads + WhatsApp files + school documents + client projects + videos + installers + photos

all accumulating on the same machine. After a few years, finding one particular file can become frustrating. Instead of spending money on another storage-management application, Everything is a simple free tool that can make your existing Windows laptop much easier to use.

It's especially useful if you work with large numbers of files.

Final Verdict

If you're using Windows and regularly find yourself saying: I know this file is somewhere on my laptop.

install Everything. It's free, lightweight and extremely fast at what it was designed to do: locate files and folders by name. And once you learn a few search commands, you can go from searching through thousands of files manually to finding what you need in seconds.

Sometimes the best productivity tools aren't complicated. They're just tools that save you from doing the same annoying task every day.

Read more: How to Change Your iPhone or Android GPS Location for Free 2026 Guide
Read more: Windows Laptop Takes Too Long to Boot and Runs Slowly? Here’s How to Fix It