Guide

On first launch it scans the whole disk once to build an index. With 4.66 million files that takes 45 s . After that it uses the saved index, so startup takes under a second .

You can search while the index is being built. Results grow as it goes.

No, but with them it is much faster.

With administrator rights it reads the NTFS master file table (MFT) in one pass and builds the index in tens of seconds. Without them it walks folder by folder, which takes several times longer.

64-bit Windows 10 and 11. The file system it works best on is NTFS . exFAT and FAT32 can be searched too, but live updates and fast indexing are NTFS-only.

It searches. However, You have to turn it on separately.

설정 → 색인 범위 → 「USB·네트워크 드라이브도 담기」

Anywhere that is not NTFS — exFAT and FAT32 USB drives, SD cards, network drives, NAS — cannot be read through the NTFS record table (MFT), so you have to open folders one by one . It is slower by that much, and more so over a network. So, to let only those who need it turn it on, It is off by default.

Turning it on leaves the NTFS-side speed you have been using unchanged. The storage is entirely separate, so the two do not interfere. When you search, The faster side's results come first, and more are appended afterwards.

It is fine. Plug it in and it is scanned and taken in; unplug it and what was taken in stays. Plug it in again and it is read again then.

USB drives are re-scanned every 10 minutes and network drives every hour, to keep up with what has changed.

Type plain text and it searches file names. You can add conditions like these.

Yes. What counts as ‘the same’ decides which kind you use.

If you have been using Everything, you can type sizedupe:, namepartdupe: and dmdupe: just as they are. The Korean form 중복: is understood too.

Results are shown grouped side by side , so you can see at a glance what overlaps with what.

Everything's dupe: looks only at the name. Files with identical contents but different names are missed — and those are usually exactly the ones you want to delete, which is why we added dupe:content.

It works in three steps.

• narrows to files of the same size. Identical contents always means identical size, so this removes almost everything.
• reads only the first 64 KB and filters again. Files of equal size usually differ near the start.
• Only what survives is read in full to confirm.

Programs like this normally have to scan the whole disk before they can start, and that takes minutes. FastFind already holds the sizes of all 4.66 million files in its index, so those minutes disappear entirely.

If there are more than 20,000 candidates it stops at size rather than reading contents, so the disk is not tied up for minutes. In that case narrow it down like dupe:content ext:jpg .

dupe: on its own scans every file and takes a moment. Narrowing by extension or folder speeds it up.

Yes. ㅅㄱㄷㅁ Typing this finds ‘설계도면’. Initial-consonant search has its own dedicated data, so it runs in about 2 msends there.

In the Search menu, File name only(Alt+N) turns it off and the whole path is searched. It is on by default — looking only at names is much faster and usually finds what you want.

If the query contains \ or / , the path is searched automatically even when the option is on.

Prefix with content: and it will. Plain text of course, and it also pulls text out of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Hangul (hwpx) documents.

Unlike name search it must open each file, so it is slower. Narrow the range with a name or extension condition first.

at the very front of the search box ? — type that, then just what you want to say, as it is after writing it, Enter Press it.

It does not ask on every keystroke. you have to press Enter It asks once.

in the search box, ✨ — press it, and ? is not required.

is only the one line you typed. Not one of your file names, paths, contents, or index ever leaves.

and what the AI understood it as We show them on screen as they are found. What you typed in the search box is left as it is — nothing is quietly swapped out. If there was a piece it could not make sense of, that is noted for you too.

An API key is required. Just pick one of the three.

설정 → AI → 「AI 로 찾기 허용」 을 켜고 열쇠를 넣습니다

If you do not enter a key, the ✨ icon itself does not appear, and ? still works as a wildcard, just as before. The screen looks exactly the same as it does now.

only inside this PC, Locked with the Windows credential store, It stays there. It does not go into the settings file.

%LOCALAPPDATA%\FastFind\ai_key.bin

It can only be unlocked on this account on this PC. Moving the whole folder to another PC will not unlock it, and if locking fails, Nothing is written — it is never left in plain text. Clear the field and save, and the file is deleted.

works. Pick the files to tidy up, right-click → “Tidy up names with AI…” . Tags are “Add tags with AI…” .

is not changed right away. First it shows you, line by line, what will be changed into what.

• You can clear the checkbox to leave out any line you do not want
• you can add “change it like this” and ask again
• nothing happens on disk until you press “Apply”

Up to 40 at a time. What goes out is file names onlyand the path, size, and contents never leave.

Tags are It does not change a single byte of your files. It is written only to a list kept separately.

The name the AI gives is not used as-is; it passes through a filter first. \ / : * ? " < > | is in it, it is thrown away, and changing or inventing an extension is rejected. Names that are too long and names Windows cannot use (CON·NUL and the like) are blocked too.

Settings → Integration → Add to the Explorer right-click menu Turn this on. It applies as soon as you press OK — no need to restart the program or Explorer.

After that, right-clicking shows two entries.

The search box opens with path:"C:\Work" already filled in — just type the word you are looking for.

In five places.

• A file — narrows to the folder that holds it
• A folder
• Empty space inside a folder — narrows to the folder you are looking at
• Empty space on the desktop
• A drive — on this PC C: D: Right-click

Windows 11 does not show menus registered this way on the first screen. Shift + right-clickor use Show more options at the bottom of the menu.

Windows decides this placement and we cannot change it. On Windows 10 it appears directly.

The registered entry used to keep pointing at the old folder, so clicking did nothing. Now the program notices at startup and re-registers itself.

If it still fails, turn it off and on again in Settings.

Results Right-clickand it appears.

To select several, Ctrl or Shift Hold this while clicking.

Results Shift + right-clickor use the right-click menu's More Windows options Press it.

Archivers, antivirus, cloud sync and anything else attached to Explorer keep working as usual.

Right-click a result → Toggle favourite pressing this ★ is attached.

In the Search menu, ★ Favourites only shows only the items you have marked.

Yes. In the Search menu, Saved searches stores it so you can recall it in one step next time.

path:"C:\Work" ext:pdf mtime:thisweek — the longer the query, the more it helps.

The button at the bottom right, Grid , turns the list into tiles. When looking for photos or videos, a picture beats a name.

In grid view, ← → moves sideways.

Examples turns them on and off from the menu.

Right-click a column header to choose among Name, Path, Size, Modified, Extension and Type , and drag to change their order and width. Reset to default columns is in that menu too.

In the Tools menu, Open web UI opens the same search in a browser. The address is http://127.0.0.1:9090 .

Web access is off by default. The first time you click it, we ask whether to turn it on; if you choose Yes, it is turned on right there and the browser opens. You can turn it off again at any time under Settings → Web access.

It is only reachable inside your PC. Nothing outside can connect.

Usually not — new and deleted files are tracked live.

If it still looks wrong, use Rebuild index from the Tools menu. It takes about 45 seconds for 4.66 million files, and you can keep searching meanwhile.

Clear cache also deletes the saved index file and rebuilds from scratch. Use it only when a rebuild is not enough.

Entering the filter row starts from the chip currently applied. Simply entering it does not change the filter.

Double-clicking the path column opens the folder that holds it. Double-clicking the name column opens the file.

Settings → Shortcuts lets you change it. It applies on save, and if another program already holds the combination we tell you which one.

Leave the field empty and that shortcut is simply not used. Handy when you cannot give up the program it clashes with.

Yes. Register it in right-click tools, batch files or shortcuts. Inside the program, Help → Command-line help has the same information.

FastFind.exe -s quote
FastFind.exe -p "C:\Work" -s quote
FastFind.exe -p D: -s quote
FastFind.exe --console ext:log > list.txt

Do not put a backslash at the end of a path. The Windows command line reads the following quote as a character. "D:\" Instead of D: or "C:\Work" , write it like this.

The install location (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\FastFind) is not on PATH. Command Prompt needs the full path.

Run (Win+R), shortcuts and right-click toolsaccept the name alone.

If you use it often from a command prompt, save the two lines below as ff.bat and put it in a folder on your PATH.

@echo off
"%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\FastFind\FastFind.exe" %*

Then, from anywhere, ff -p "C:\Work" -s quote is all you need.

While FastFind is running it opens a small search serverinside your PC. Other programs can fetch results from it, and you can add your own entries to the result right-click menu .

Developer docs documents the REST API and how to write plugins.

Something built exactly this way — MyStart finds your PC files from a browser start page. Install FastFind and it connects automatically.

Settings → General → Theme has ten of them.

All ten have had the brightness difference between text and background measured, and so that there are no hard-to-read combinations , and set them to meet it.

Settings → General → Font — change it there.

The default is “Match the language”, so on Korean Windows it uses Malgun Gothic. But Malgun Gothic has almost no Chinese characters, so for file names with Chinese or Japanese mixed in, Windows draws them with a substitute font instead. The sizes and positions then fall out of line, and the text looks blurry and crooked.

Switching to a font that covers Korean, Chinese and Japanese (for example Noto Sans KR) makes them render evenly. only the fonts installed on this PC list — it appears there.

Settings → General → Default sort — set it there and it will keep opening that way. The default is by relevance.

You can also type it straight into the search term — By size or sort:size:desc like that. In this case, what you typed in the query wins.

Settings → System → “Find by other words too” — turn it on. It is off by default.

When turned on, 사진 (photo) also finds photo, picture and img, and 글꼴 (font) also finds font. We show on screen what your term was expanded with.

in the search box Shift+Space instead. It is on by default, and Settings → General — you can turn it off there.

Settings → General → Retention period — choose from 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 1 year, or keep forever. The default is 30 days.

for 4.66 million files 65.9MB . Under the same conditions Everything used 473.5 MB. Names and the item array are borrowed straight from the file, so nothing is held twice in memory.

How to check it yourself is written down.

Over 60 idle seconds it uses 0.85 s is used. That is the cost of watching the journal so new and deleted files show up live. Under the same conditions Everything used 0.84 s — effectively the same.

for 4.66 million files 479MB . Right now both the old and the new index are kept side by side. Merging them into one is still to come, and that will cut it to less than half. Full comparison is written out there.

The measurement conditions and How to measure it yourselfare all published — including the items where we lose.

See the full comparison · How to check it yourself

Nowhere. The index lives only on your PC and searching happens entirely there. It works with no internet connection at all.

We have not attached a code-signing certificate yet, so some antivirus products treat the file as unfamiliar and warn. You can verify the download has not been altered using its hash.

Get-FileHash "$HOME\Downloads\FastFind-Local-Setup-x64.exe" -Algorithm SHA256

The value shown manifest.json — if it matches, the file is genuine.

Uninstalling removes the index file too. Settings and the index live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\FastFind — you can look and delete it yourself.

This can happen when the program starts before the taskbar is ready after boot. It now retries by itself until it succeeds, so it appears shortly after.

If it still does not show, check Settings → Personalisation → Taskbar → System tray icons to see whether FastFind is hidden.

It normally appears immediately. If not, that drive may be excluded from indexing, or it may be caught by the excluded paths and extensions in Settings. Please check there.

Check whether a filter chip is switched on. If you pick Documents › PPT, for example, only PowerPoint files appear no matter what you type afterwards. An active chip is now shown as Documents · PPT, so you can see it at a glance. Press All to clear it.

Please let us know via Contact. Attaching the log file (%LOCALAPPDATA%\FastFind\fastfind.log) makes it far quicker to track down.