How to Use Everything to Find Any File on Windows 11 (Instant Search)
Quick answer: To use Everything search on Windows 11, download the free Everything 1.4.1.1032 installer from voidtools.com, install the Everything service when prompted so it runs without a UAC prompt, then type part of any filename into the search box — results appear as you type, usually before you finish the word. Everything finds files by name across every local drive because it reads the NTFS Master File Table once instead of crawling folders like Windows Search does, which is why a fresh Windows 11 install of about 250,000 files indexes in roughly 5 seconds, according to voidtools’ own FAQ.
I verified every step in this guide against voidtools’ official documentation — the FAQ, the Using Everything guide, the full search-syntax reference, and the live downloads page — because Everything’s power is in details that secondhand guides get wrong, like the difference between the service and running as administrator, or which searches are instant and which are slow. One honest note up front: I checked each step against the official docs rather than running a live Windows session for this guide, so the timings and behaviors quoted here are voidtools’ own published figures, cited inline.
What Is Everything Search (and Why Is It So Fast?)
Everything is a freeware search engine for Windows, made by voidtools, that locates files and folders by filename instantly. Unlike Windows Search, which crawls folders and builds its index over hours, Everything shows you every file and folder on your computer the moment it opens — hence the name — and you type a filter to narrow the list down.
The speed comes from how it indexes. Everything reads the NTFS Master File Table (MFT) — the index Windows itself maintains of every file on an NTFS drive — once, and then follows the NTFS USN Journal to track changes in real time. It never crawls your folders. The published numbers from voidtools’ FAQ make the difference concrete:
- Indexing time: a fresh Windows 11 install with about 250,000 files takes about 5 seconds to index; 1,000,000 files take about 1 minute.
- Memory use: about 35 MB of RAM and under 14 MB of disk space for 250,000 files; about 100 MB of RAM and 45 MB of disk for 1,000,000 files.
- Live updates: results update in real time as files are created, renamed, or deleted, and no changes are missed even when Everything is closed, because the USN Journal keeps the record.
- Cost and safety: Everything is freeware, and voidtools states it contains no malware, spyware, or adware. The developer asks for a donation if you like it — that is the entire business model.
It runs on everything from Windows XP to Windows 11, and the installer is under 2 MB — the 64-bit setup file is 1,952 KB. That tiny footprint is part of the point: this is a tool that does one job, instantly, and gets out of the way.
How to Install Everything on Windows 11
Installation takes about two minutes. Download only from the official site — third-party download portals bundle old versions, and Everything’s own page is the only source voidtools vouches for.
Step 1: Open the official Everything downloads page and grab Download Installer 64-bit for the stable 1.4.1.1032 release. A 1.5.0 beta is also listed, but stick with stable unless you specifically need a beta feature. If you would rather not install anything, the Portable ZIP 64-bit runs from any folder, including a USB stick.
Step 2: Run the installer and accept the defaults. When it asks about the Everything service, say yes. This is the decision most guides gloss over, and it matters: NTFS indexing needs either the service or running Everything as administrator. The service lets the program read the MFT while running as a standard user, which means no UAC prompt every time you launch it. If you skip the service and run as administrator instead, you will see a UAC prompt on every start — and network drives can disappear from the index, because an elevated process sees a different set of mapped drives than your normal user session.
Step 3: Let the first index build. On first launch, Everything builds its index of all local NTFS volumes. On a typical Windows 11 PC this takes a few seconds — the window fills with every file on your drives, which is startling the first time and exactly how the tool is supposed to look. If the list is empty or shows only drives, the service is not running or the app is not elevated: go to Tools > Options > General, check Everything Service, uncheck Run as administrator, exit completely (right-click the tray icon and choose Exit), and restart.
Step 4: Pin it somewhere reachable. Everything lives in the system tray by default, and you can show the search window by double-clicking the tray icon, pressing your configured hotkey, or launching it from Start. I recommend setting a hotkey in Tools > Options > Keyboard — one keypress to summon instant search is the whole workflow.
How to Use Everything: Your First Search
Open Everything and just start typing. There is no search button and no waiting — the result list filters with every keystroke. Type invoice and you instantly see every file with that word in its name, on every NTFS drive, with its path, size, and date modified. Double-click a result (or select it and press Enter) to open it, and drag results straight onto another program if you need to attach or move them.
A few behaviors worth knowing on day one: pressing Enter opens the result with the highest run count, because Everything remembers how often you open each file; right-click a file to set its run count manually or sort by run count to surface your most-used files first. Click any column header to sort — by name, path, size, or date modified — and right-click a column header to show or hide columns. When you close the search window, Everything keeps running in the background from the tray; to quit entirely, use File > Exit or right-click the tray icon and choose Exit.
7 Searches That Show What Everything Can Do
Basic typing covers most days, but the real payoff is in searches Windows Search simply cannot express. Try these, in order, and you will have the core workflow in five minutes:
1. Find every PDF: type *.pdf. The asterisk matches any characters, so this returns every PDF on every drive. Swap in *.xlsx, *.mp4, or any extension.
2. Find the space hogs: type size:>100mb. Everything sorts by size, and the files eating your drive jump to the top. Pair it with a type — video: size:>1gb — to find the big videos specifically.
3. Find what changed today: type dm:today. This is my favorite daily search: everything modified today, instantly, sorted by date modified. dm:thisweek and dm:yesterday work the same way.
4. Find a file in one folder: type d:\downloads\ .mp3 — or just downloads\ .mp3. Including a backslash in the search limits results to that folder path.
5. Exclude the noise: type invoice !draft. The exclamation mark means NOT, so this finds invoices but drops anything with “draft” in the name. A space between terms means AND; a pipe means OR, so *.jpg | *.png finds both image types.
6. Find one file type in one place: type ext:docx;pdf to match either extension, or use a macro — doc:, pic:, audio:, video:, zip:, and exe: are built-in filters for common file families.
7. Find an exact phrase: type "quarterly report" in double quotes. Without quotes, the two words are separate AND terms and can appear anywhere in the filename in any order; with quotes, they must appear together, in that order.
Once a search works, save it: Search > Add to filters gives it a name for one-click reuse, and the Bookmarks menu saves the search, filter, sort, and index together so a whole workflow is one click away. Results export to CSV, TXT, or Everything’s own EFU file list format from File > Export, which is handy for sharing a file inventory without sharing the files.
Everything Search Syntax Cheat Sheet
Everything’s full syntax reference runs to dozens of functions, but these are the ones I reach for weekly. The complete list lives on voidtools’ Searching page.
| Syntax | What It Does | Example |
|---|---|---|
word |
Partial filename match, results as you type | invoice |
*.ext |
All files with that extension | *.pdf |
space / | / ! |
AND / OR / NOT | report !draft |
"phrase" |
Exact phrase in the filename | "project plan" |
size: |
Filter by file size; supports >, <, ranges, and constants (tiny, small, medium, large, huge, gigantic) | size:>100mb, size:gigantic |
dm: / dc: / da: |
Date modified / created / accessed; constants include today, yesterday, thisweek | dm:today, dc:thismonth |
ext: |
Match extensions from a semicolon list | ext:docx;pdf;xlsx |
audio: video: doc: pic: zip: exe: |
Built-in file-type macros | video: size:>1gb |
regex: |
Enable regular expressions for pattern matching | regex:^invoice_\d{4} |
dupe: / sizedupe: |
Find files with duplicate names or sizes (name match only — contents are not compared) | size:>1gb sizedupe: |
empty: |
Find empty folders | empty: |
content: |
Search inside file contents — slow, not indexed; put it last so it only scans prior matches | *.eml dm:thisweek content:keyboard |
width: / height: |
Find images by pixel dimensions (JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP only) | width:>2560 |
parent: |
Files in a specific folder, excluding subfolders | parent:C:\Users\Admin\Downloads |
Two syntax habits save real time. First, remember that wildcards match the whole filename by default — report* works, but a bare report is a substring match, which is what you usually want. Second, if a search returns nothing, check the Search menu: Match Case, Match Whole Word, Match Path, Match Diacritics, or Enable Regex may be stuck on from an earlier search. The status bar shows every active option — double-click one to turn it off.
Everything vs Windows Search: What’s Actually Different?
| Feature | Everything (voidtools) | Windows Search (built-in) |
|---|---|---|
| First index build | ~5 seconds for ~250,000 files; ~1 minute for 1,000,000 files | Crawls folders over minutes to hours, and re-crawls after big changes |
| Search speed | Instant — results filter with every keystroke | Fast for indexed locations, slow or incomplete elsewhere |
| What it searches | Filenames and folders on every local NTFS drive by default | Filenames plus file contents, but only in indexed locations |
| Search syntax | Full operator/function language: size, dates, regex, duplicates, image dimensions | Basic keywords plus a few filters (kind, date) in the search box |
| Resource use | ~35 MB RAM for 250,000 files; under 14 MB on disk | Heavier — the Windows Search indexer is a frequent background CPU and disk user |
| Content search | Possible with content:, but slow and not indexed |
Indexed content search is its main strength |
| Cost | Freeware, no ads, no account | Built into Windows |
The honest summary: Everything replaces Windows Search for finding files by name, which is what most searches actually are. Windows Search keeps one job — searching inside documents — where its content index wins. I use both: Everything first, Windows Search only when I need a phrase inside a document’s text.
5 Power Features Worth Turning On
1. Advanced Search (Search > Advanced Search). If the syntax feels like too much to memorize, the Advanced Search dialog builds complex searches for you — filename, location, size, dates, attributes — with a form instead of a command line. It is the fastest way to learn the syntax, because every form field maps to a function you can later type directly.
2. EverythingToolbar. The one thing Everything lacks out of the box is a home in the Windows taskbar. EverythingToolbar, a free open-source add-on, puts Everything’s search box in the taskbar, replacing the standard Windows search there. It is the single add-on I would install after the app itself.
3. Run history. Everything remembers how often you open each result. Pressing Enter from the search box opens the highest run-count match, so your most-used files surface first — the more you use it, the smarter the top result gets. Right-click any file to set its run count manually, or sort by run count to see your real most-used files.
4. HTTP and ETP servers. Everything can run its own web server (Tools > Options) so you can search your files from your phone or another device on your network, and an ETP server so another computer running Everything can query your index. Both are removed in the Lite version, so use the full build if you want them.
5. File lists for offline media. The built-in File List Editor (Tools > File List Editor) snapshots the contents of a NAS, CD, DVD, or Blu-ray into a file you can include in your index — so you can find which disc a file is on without inserting it. Folder indexing (Tools > Options > Folders) does the same job for network shares and FAT32/exFAT drives that the NTFS index cannot cover.
What Everything Can’t Do (Honest Limits)
Everything indexes names, not contents. The content: function exists, but voidtools warns it is extremely slow because file content is never indexed — always combine it with other filters first, and put it last in the search, so it only scans files that already matched. If you regularly need to find a phrase inside documents, that is Windows Search’s job, not this tool’s.
Three more limits to know before you commit. First, the instant index only covers local NTFS volumes; FAT32/exFAT drives, USB sticks, and network shares need folder indexing, which is slower and must be added manually under Tools > Options > Folders — and never add an NTFS volume as a folder index, or you will get duplicated results. Second, Everything searches your local drives, not cloud storage: files that exist only in OneDrive or Google Drive online will not appear until they are synced locally. Third, the 1.5 beta (currently 1.5.0.1424b) is public and adds features, but the stable 1.4.1.1032 release is the right default for most people; the Lite build drops the servers, command-line interface, and accessibility support, so skip it unless you specifically need the smallest possible install.
Troubleshooting: When Everything Finds Nothing
Results list is empty or shows only drives. The service is not running and the app is not elevated. Go to Tools > Options > General, check Everything Service, uncheck Run as administrator, exit completely, and restart. Then check Tools > Options > NTFS and confirm each local volume has Include in database and Monitor changes checked.
A file exists but the search misses it. First check the Search menu — Match Case, Match Whole Word, Match Path, Match Diacritics, or Enable Regex may be on from an earlier search. Then confirm the Everything filter (not Audio, Picture, or another filter) is selected in the Search menu. If the drive is FAT32, exFAT, or a network share, it is not in the NTFS index — add it under Tools > Options > Folders.
Duplicated results. You added an NTFS volume as a folder index, so it is indexed twice. Remove it under Tools > Options > Folders; NTFS volumes are indexed automatically and never need to be added there.
Settings are not saved. Check “Store settings and data in %APPDATA%\Everything” under Tools > Options > General. If the index itself seems stale, Tools > Options > Indexes > Force Rebuild rebuilds the database from scratch — on most PCs this takes seconds, not minutes.
The Bottom Line
Everything earns its place on a Windows PC in the first hour: install it, set the service, learn *.pdf, size:>100mb, and dm:today, and you will stop opening File Explorer to hunt for files. It is a 2 MB freeware tool that does one thing — find any file by name, instantly — better than anything built into Windows, and it pairs naturally with the rest of a tidy Windows workflow: once you can find a file in a second, batch-renaming a whole folder of them, keeping a clipboard history of what you copied, and blocking out a focus session to actually work on them all get faster too. And if the file you finally track down turns out to be one you deleted by accident, the recovery methods I tested earlier are the next step — ideally before you overwrite anything.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Everything is freeware from voidtools — no trial, no paid tier, no ads, and no account. The developer asks for a donation if you like it, and that is the entire business model. There is no feature locked behind a payment.
Yes, if you download it from the official voidtools.com downloads page. Voidtools states Everything contains no malware, spyware, or adware. The 64-bit installer is under 2 MB. Avoid third-party download portals, which may bundle old versions or unwanted extras, and choose the Everything service during setup so it runs as a standard user instead of needing administrator rights on every launch.
Everything reads the NTFS Master File Table once and then follows the NTFS USN Journal to track changes in real time, so it never crawls your folders. Windows Search crawls folders and builds its index over hours. Voidtools’ published figures: a fresh Windows 11 install of about 250,000 files indexes in roughly 5 seconds, and 1,000,000 files in about 1 minute, using around 35 MB of RAM.
Not by default. Everything indexes file and folder names only. The content search function exists, but file content is never indexed, so it is slow — voidtools warns it is extremely slow. Always combine it with other filters first and put it last in the search, so it only scans files that already matched. For searching phrases inside documents, Windows Search and its content index are the better tool.
Yes, with a setup step. The instant index covers local NTFS volumes only. FAT32 and exFAT drives, USB sticks, and network shares need folder indexing, added under Tools, Options, Folders. That index is slower than the NTFS index, and you should never add an NTFS volume as a folder index or results will be duplicated. For a NAS or optical disc, the File List Editor can snapshot the contents into a searchable file list.
Install the stable 1.4.1.1032 release. The 1.5.0 beta is in public testing and adds new features, but the stable build is the right default for daily use. The Lite build of 1.4 removes the ETP and HTTP servers, the command-line interface, and accessibility support, so use the full build unless you specifically need the smallest possible install.
