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IMO, Everything search engine is the best desktop search software on Windows and I wonder if there is an equivalent utility on Ubuntu ?

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8 Answers 8

10

You can try tracker-search Install tracker-search

It is available in the Software Center.

To install it, run the following command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install tracker-gui

After installing it, search for Desktop Search in the dash and open it. You can then search for the files and folders in the search bar.

enter image description here

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  • I'm just tasting UBUNTU. tracker-gui is a very nice search app. I'm very surprised from searching within documents alongside files and folders! A great advantage.
    – ABS
    Dec 1, 2017 at 15:59
  • this doesn't seem to be available on 17.10
    – glS
    Mar 16, 2018 at 12:40
  • 1
    'Could not find tracker-search'
    – Paul Jones
    Apr 1, 2020 at 20:10
  • 1
    On Ubuntu 20.04 I get "E: Package 'tracker-gui' has no installation candidate"
    – rluks
    Feb 20, 2021 at 20:29
8

An app called FSearch could help with this.

FSearch is a fast file search utility for GNU/Linux operating systems, inspired by Everything Search Engine. It's written in C and based on GTK+3.

It has regex support and instant results.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:christian-boxdoerfer/fsearch-daily
sudo apt update 
sudo apt install fsearch

enter image description here

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  • Please change "sudo apt install fsearch-trunk" to "sudo apt install fsearch" May 20, 2022 at 17:51
7

Install synapse from the software center or via the terminal using

sudo apt-get install synapse

Synapse is a semantic launcher written in Vala that you can use to start applications as well as find and access relevant documents and files by making use of the Zeitgeist engine.

It will index all your files - images, music, video, documents, applications, folders you visit, etc and you can launch them from there.

To activate just use ctrl + space keys and just type your search terms. Scroll the results using the up and down keys and browse the different categories using the right and left. Once you find your result, press enter to launch.

See screenshot below after I typed 'ubu':

enter image description here

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  • 1
    Hi, there is also <kbd>Tab</kbd> for selection alternate actions for a result.
    – henry
    Jun 8, 2014 at 20:20
3

Nautilus is capable of searching your whole computer. If you have external drivers, mount them and it will search on them too!

For instance, I have a drive called FILES, so I mount it and search a file from the root Ubuntu directory / and it is found and displayed in a list style:

screenshoot

To search for files in Nautilus press Ctrl+F, then type the filename on the bar.

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  • Yeah but i want a [list all files] program, for Dee duplication and sorting of my horribly disorganized 10 tb drives.
    – TardisGuy
    May 2, 2014 at 21:33
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In Ubuntu 11.10 Unity presents this search function as the 1st option on the menu. Easy acess, very nice. Find applications, files, everything very fast. I recommend. =D

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  • 3
    not even remotely as fast as Everything though.
    – vikki
    Oct 22, 2013 at 14:20
3

Yes, FSearch is an Ubuntu equivalent of Everythings in Windows.

FSearch also could search Windows files (fat32, NTFS formats).


Installation:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:christian-boxdoerfer/fsearch-daily
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt install fsearch-trunk
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0

Catfish. Not a perfect alternative but it claims to have an extension that allows querying and maintaining indexes.

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A different answer.

You can use wine + everything with some configrations.

  1. tool -> option

    enter image description here

  2. set the root directionary.

    enter image description here

Then, enjoy everything on ubuntu. :-P

enter image description here

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