Use EverythingToolbar to Find Files Faster on Windows 10
I didn’t use Windows 10’s search feature often because I didn’t find it very useful. By default, it is convenient to search for an application as a last resort or go to the settings window without having to navigate the parameters tree, but this is exactly as long as I would interact with it. Therefore, I am willing to give up this feature in order to turn it into an extremely powerful search tool for my computer.
However, I will need a little help for this. I’ll be using the just released EverythingToolbar project, which you can use to replace the regular Windows 10 search bar with the popular Voidtool ” Everyone ” search utility.
First you need to download and install Everything . This should be self-evident. Next, you will download and install EverythingToolbar, which requires you to run a simple .CMD file with administrator privileges. Then you activate the new toolbar by right clicking on the taskbar (probably twice) and then you can disable the standard search toolbar and drag the EverythingToolbar to replace it as shown here:
The only downside to EverythingToolbar is that pressing the Windows key opens the default Start menu as expected, while typing something launches the default search in Windows 10, not EverythingToolbar. However, this was to be expected. (I suppose you could reassign the EverythingToolbar Windows Key + Alt + S hotkey to the actual Windows Key if you like, but then you have to click on the Start Menu every time you want to launch it. Options, options.)
In the EverythingToolbar options, you’ll find case, path, and whole word matching, as well as a switch that allows you to search using regular expressions – really advanced mode. You can also access these settings by right-clicking on the EverythingToolbar search box.
Finally, I want to draw your attention to the “Rules” section of the utility, which allows you to define your own “open with” commands. That being said, you can define the different applications you want to use to open the files and folders you were looking for based on any regular expressions you use as part of your search.
This feature definitely falls into the “power user” category, but it’s just another way Everything – and EverythingToolbar – is much more useful than searching in the default Start menu in Windows 10. Of course, unless you want to mess around with additional utilities, you can also dive into Windows 10 to enable a similar feature: go to Settings> Search> Windows Search and turn on Advanced Mode , which lets you quickly search for everything on your computer. hard drive, not files only in Windows 10 Libraries or on the desktop.