How to search for specific file on computer?

[paulyjames]

My old sager laptop no longer worked. I however was able to transfer files from it to an external hard drive. Im trying to find this file on it. However, i cannot find it. That was in window 7. My new computer is windows 10.


I know the name of the file but i cannot find it. I do not know the name of the folder. So does that mean if i type the file and its not there, that means the file is 100 percent not on my external?

 

[Callender]

Don't know much about File Seach in Windows 10.

An external drive would be a "non-indexed" location in Windows 7. Personally I keep windows search disabled and use third party replacements. One of those that is supposed to work in Windows 10 is:

UltraFileSeach​

You would need the LITE version which is freeware. Try the portable version for test purposes.

Example: Search for file names containing the text string "plugi" - use asterisks * for wildcards.

​

Or see other options for finding specific words or phrases in a file's contents.

 

[Lance1]

You could ask Cortana to find it for you!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Another great search tool is Everything, free from voidtools.com.

It works great in W 7 and I'd guess it works in W 10 also.

It finds files as quick as you can type part of the name. It works ONLY on file names, not content.

 

[BobFairmead]

Just want to agree with ignatzatsonic about using Everything. I have used it for some years, never fails. If you have a few drives connected, give it a second or two - wait until its screen fills up. Link below.

Everything Search Engine

 

[strollin]

No need to make this more difficult by downloading and installing external search engines when Windows can do it with ease.

Open File Explorer, select the external drive, then type the name of the file you want to search for in the search box in the upper right. Depending on how large the drive is, it might take some time but it will find all instances of that file name on the drive. There's also options available to be able to narrow down the search if you know the date the file was created or how large it is. The drive I did the search on is a 4TB drive with 3.5TB of data on it. Took about 20 seconds for Windows to find 2 instances of the file I searched for. Here's a screenshot:

 

[BobFairmead]

Each to his own. I've lived with both. "Everything" is better, in my opinion, and it does not make searching harder - quite the opposite. You say potato...

 

[Lance1]

Just downloaded and tried Everything. I think I just found my new search engine! Thanks for the link BobFairmead! Never did like the Windows search engine.

 

[strollin]

Each to his own. I've lived with both. "Everything" is better, in my opinion, and it does not make searching harder - quite the opposite. You say potato...

It made the OP's job "harder" because he needed to download and install a 3rd party utility when it wasn't needed. He wasn't complaining that Windows searches were slow or hard, he just didn't know how to do it.

I never said anything good or bad about "Everything", only that Windows could easily do what he asked.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yea well you guys do realize this is SevenForums not
Windows 10 Forums

 

[strollin]

Regardless, the search engines being discussed work in both OSes.

I had never tried either "Everything" or "UltraFileSearch" that have been mentioned in this thread so I downloaded both of them and tried them out.

"UltraFileSearch" has a nice GUI that makes it easy to input your search criteria. It seemed slower to me than the Windows Search built-in to File Explorer.

"Everything" is a very fast and powerful search tool but I would never recommend it to a novice user. My main dislike for it is that it literally searched everywhere. It defaults to searching your entire system, so in my test search for "autorun.inf" that I knew was on the O: drive, instead of "Everything" finding the 2 occurrences of the file on the O: drive, it listed about 40 occurrences of the file across all of the drives in my system. To it's credit, it found all of those occurrences in less time than it took Windows or UltraFileSearch to find only the occurrences on the O: drive. It took me awhile of reading the Help to figure out how to tell "Everything" to only search the O: drive, had to do an AND search "O:\" autorun.inf (a blank between the 2 search arguments tells it to search the O: drive AND for autorun.inf) which returned only the 2 found on the O: drive.

For myself, I still prefer the Windows search tool over these 2 alternatives, mostly because it does what I need and I don't need to learn how to do things a different way. If you want something that is very easy to use then "UltraFileSearch" might be best for you, if you want something more powerful but harder to learn then "Everything" is for you.

 

[Callender]

@ Strollin

I mentioned a third party search utility in this thread because windows search did not locate the files on the OP#s external drive. Anyway I have a few file search utilities handy and do not like windows search so keep it disabled. One of those is "Everything Search" portable but it's not my "go to" search app. If you want speed try taking SwiftSearch (portable) for a test run.

It searches MFT on NTFS formatted drives only and it locates files with lightning speed. I launch it from an Elevated shortcut. It searches folder and file names and accepts wildcards (asetrisks)

 

[Lance1]

@ Strollin

I mentioned a third party search utility in this thread because windows search did not locate the files on the OP#s external drive. Anyway I have a few file search utilities handy and do not like windows search so keep it disabled. One of those is "Everything Search" portable but it's not my "go to" search app. If you want speed try taking SwiftSearch (portable) for a test run.

It searches MFT on NTFS formatted drives only and it locates files with lightning speed. I launch it from an Elevated shortcut. It searches folder and file names and accepts wildcards (asetrisks)

Very simplistic I like it. One for me to carry around on my thumb drive.

 

[strollin]

SwiftSearch works pretty good but not enough of an improvement over the Windows search tool that I would start using it instead.

The Windows search tool has always done everything I needed. On top of that, I probably would never remember to invoke SwiftSearch instead of the Windows search tool since I almost always have several File Explorer dialogs open when I'm working and it's very easy for me to simply type in my search in one of them rather than invoke a different program.

I'm glad we had this discussion though as it gave me a chance to try some of these other search tools and some other members have stated that they will use one of them instead of the Windows tool.