Are you struggling to find a particular file on your computer quickly? Continue reading to learn how to search files by content using the Everything search tool on your computer. Further, we will tell you how you can do a file content search with Anytxt.

Search File Names by Everything

Everything is a third-party tool to search for files by their names in Windows. And the strength that makes it stand out among other search tools is that it has the ability to find any file on your computer. Also, the Everything search tool is considerably faster as compared to the Windows search for all types of files.

Further, Everything has small installation files and quick startup, a user-friendly interface, quick file indexing, fast searching, minimal resource usage, less memory usage, and real-time updating.

In addition to this, the Everything search tool is lightweight and handy that creates indexes of files on your computer when you use it for the first time. And according to its developers, Everything takes 1 minute to index around 1 million files but takes 1 second to index when you install it the first time on Windows.

Search File Contents by Everything

On the other hand, Everything provides a very quick peek into the content of the file because it is basically a search tool to find files by their names. You can use the following methods to search files by content using Everything.

Although these processes can be relatively slower than the other searches through the Everything search tool because Everything does not index windows content in advance. But it will still be faster than searching file content through traditional windows search.

Using the content: function

Content search on the Everything search tool can be slow because it does not index file content. However, if you use the content: function (this function works only in Everything 1.4 and later versions) with the filters, it will be relatively fast. Further, we have listed below the content: a function that you can use to search files by content.

• content: <text> — will search the file content using the iFilter. If iFilter is not associated, it will use UTF-8 content.
• ansicontent: <text> — file contents will be treated as ANSI text.
• utf8content: <text> — file contents will be treated as UTF-8 text.
• utf16content: <text> — file contents will be treated as UTF-16 (Unicode) text.
• utf16becontent: <text> — file contents will be treated as UTF-16 (big-endian) text.

Advanced Search option

You can use the Advanced Search option to search file content using Everything. In the following picture, you can see how it provides information about the file location; when you search a file by its content in the Advanced Search tab.

From the above picture, you can see that it provides different options to search content, and it supports various file formats (you can select the file format according to the file that you want to search). Then, you can choose the specific phrase (that you typed) that you want in the file, a part of that phrase will be in the file, or even select which words will not be in the file. This will greatly simplify the task of filtering the exact desired file, and as specific as you can be, the results will be quicker.

File Content Search With Anytxt

Searching a file by content with Anytxt is very easy and fast. You will find your required file instantly, and it will not take much time. Follow the following steps to find a file by its content using the free desktop tool Anytxt.

Step 1. First, free download and install Anytxt.

Step 2. Open the Anytxt searcher on your desktop.

Step 3. Enter a phrase (that you wish to search) in the search bar on the top left beneath the Menu bar.

Step 4. If you want to search specific file types, you have that option, as shown in the following picture. Press the Go button after selecting the required file type to start searching the files by the content. It will list down all the matching files in around a second.

It will filter search results, and you will get a more accurate file. Also, you can check the search time in the bottom left corner and see how quick it is as it finishes the search in less than 1 second. Free download.

Conclusion

All in all, Everything is a quick and convenient way to search a file by name on your computer. Also, Everything is faster than the built-in Windows search feature. However, if you search a file by its content, the Everything search tool can take time. Therefore, you should file contents search with Anytxt because it is convenient and faster than a traditional search tool.