Several Feature Suggestions from My Own File Search App

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quentinxavier
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2025 7:44 pm

Several Feature Suggestions from My Own File Search App

Post by quentinxavier »

I'm a professional video editor, and I was looking for a tool like Everything long ago--a powerful search engine for my countless local files--but couldn't find anything, so I ended up beginning work on my own solution in October of 2024 called Gottem. I've gradually added features over time, until eventually finding Everything last week. I've now decided to completely abandon the development of Gottem, since it was pretty unoptimized and a bit funky at times, due to the fact that the app was a Python script, and I'm pretty bad at Python, and I often relied on vibe coding to quickly throw a feature together so I could get back to work.

Everything does most of what Gottem did, and better, too, but there are a few key differences that I kind of miss having that I figured I'd throw together as a list of suggestions. It's possible some of the things below are actually possible in Everything and I just don't know what I'm doing yet, so please let me know if that's the case! :D

Generalized Keyword Search
Gottem also had a few search operators such as name:, path:, extension:, etc. but I honestly hardly used them, since I made Gottem's default "keyword search" match file names, paths, tags, file types, and saved searches (saved searches are similar to filters or bookmarks in Everything). So by simply typing "wood sfx" I would get all of the files with "wood" in the name OR path from within my SFX folder. Or for another example, I had a saved search called "nintendo" where the search was "mario or: zelda or: animal crossing or: acnh or: acnl or: pikmin", so by simply typing "nintendo music" in the future, I can find any file in my music folder that either has one of those words in the file name or file path. It made the tool feel like a super smart search engine that could take a vague query and really show you ANYTHING that might be relevant. Some sort of option to allow the keyword search to match more than just file names would be super awesome, and the more configurable the better, in case people DO want it to match things like paths but maybe DON'T necessarily want it to match filters, or maybe they ONLY want it to match SPECIFIC filters.

Configurable Popularity Logic for File Types
Filters in Everything are pretty close to the configurable file types I had in Gottem, but two REALLY key differences made life a whole lot easier for me. First of all, file types had configurable logic for when exactly the "Popularity" of a file should be incremented (the same thing as Everything's Run Count). So for example, I want executables to increment when I actually run them, but NOT when I drag and drop them. I want sound effects to only increment when I drag and drop them into Premiere Pro, but NOT when I just open them to view them. I want AHK files to increment whether I'm running them OR dragging and dropping them to share with someone. And maybe I don't ever want text files to increment popularity at all... for some reason.

This allowed me to easily preview what sound effects on my computer sound like by running them without necessarily increasing their popularity in the file system, only ever having popularity increment if they actually got drag-dropped into Premiere. That specific use-case is actually exactly why I made Gottem in the first place, so it'd be super cool to see something like it come to Everything. Perhaps instead of a separate File Type system from Filters, the Run Count incrementing could just have some sort of configurable logic check to see if the file that was just run matches a query, and Run Count incrementing is based on that (so if files match "filter:audio", only increment Run Count if drag-dropped).

The second difference that made my configurable file types super convenient is actually something that I implemented in several parts of the program, and is worth talking about on its own.

Aliases all over the place
For file types, saved searches, and tags, you could set aliases, which also get checked when performing a generalized keyword search. So for example, the "images" file type by default had the aliases "pictures,pics,photos,imgs", and the "programs" file type had the aliases "apps,applications,software". So by just searching "crocodile pic" I can find all of my images of crocodiles, or just type "string app" to find the string_finder.py I made for finding a string within a folder of many json files. These configurable aliases in combination with my generalized keyword search worked really well to make searching for the exact file I needed as quick and simple as possible, without having to make sure I always have perfect search syntax. I was also planning to add the ability for arguments themselves to have aliases, so ext: would work just as well as extension:.

There are a few other things like a tagging system complete with a button to add all current search results to a particular tag, but honestly I hardly used the tagging feature, so don't really look at it as something I'd care to see in Everything. The three things above were by far the most important, and I'm really curious to hear your thoughts! Again, let me know if any of the above is actually already possible, in case any of this is a moot point. Thanks!
void
Developer
Posts: 19899
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: Several Feature Suggestions from My Own File Search App

Post by void »

Thank you for your feedback quentinxavier,
So by simply typing "wood sfx" I would get all of the files with "wood" in the name OR path from within my SFX folder.
Enable Search -> Match Path for similar behavior.

\sfx will also temporarily enable path matching for sfx.

Everything primarily matches filenames for speed.


Configurable Popularity Logic for File Types
Sounds like a good idea.
However, I suspect most users would not go to the effort to set up filters.

There's a few run count options under Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> inc_run_count*

I will consider some new advanced options:
inc_run_count_execute_include_only -inc run count on execution only if the filename matches this list (empty = match all)
inc_run_count_execute_exclude -don't inc run count on execution if the filename matches this list (empty = match all)
inc_run_count_context_menu_include_only -inc run count on context menu invoke only if the filename matches this list (empty = match all)
inc_run_count_context_menu_exclude -don't inc run count on context menu invoke if the filename matches this list (empty = match all)
inc_run_count_drag_drop_include_only -inc run count on drag drop only if the filename matches this list (empty = match all)
inc_run_count_drag_drop_exclude -don't inc run count on drag drop if the filename matches this list (empty = match all)


Aliases all over the place
Everything keywords always have a trailing :
Everything 1.5 has a few keyword aliases already, eg: image: pic: images: pictures: are all the same.

You can customize macros under Search -> Organize filters.

The next alpha update will add aliases for:
app: apps: application: applications: executable: executables: program: programs: => exe:
imgs: photo: photos: => image:

kind-of related: support for synonym lists is on my TODO list. (eg: treat
and
'n
&
the same)

Everything can search tags with tag:
However, Everything cannot set tags yet.
Support for setting tags is planned for a future version.

Thank you for the suggestions and sharing your development.
quentinxavier
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2025 7:44 pm

Re: Several Feature Suggestions from My Own File Search App

Post by quentinxavier »

Thanks for the detailed response! With how incredible of a tool Everything is I figured some of these things must already possible, can't believe I missed Search -> Match Path haha, so helpful.

I definitely understand just matching file names in regular search and not matching things like filters and bookmarks, the speed of Everything is incredible and compromising that in any way is absolutely not worth it.

It would be awesome if you did include those settings you suggested for more fine-tuned control of incrementing the run count, would be a dream come true for me! As for the existing settings, I assume "inc_run_count_on_context_menu_invoke" being set to false means the Run Count shouldn't go up if I right click a file and hit Open, but in Everything 1.5a it seems that the Run Count still increments. Let me know if I'm misunderstanding how this setting works!

Also glad to see there's already a lot of aliases already, super nifty! I can't seem to see a way to customize these aliases in the Organize Filters menu, just the original macros themselves, but honestly not a massive deal, the existing aliases seem more than sufficient to me. Synonym lists sound like they'd be very powerful, looking forward to that!

Again, thanks for taking the time to respond to my post, and thank you for developing such an incredible tool!
void
Developer
Posts: 19899
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: Several Feature Suggestions from My Own File Search App

Post by void »

I definitely understand just matching file names in regular search and not matching things like filters and bookmarks
It is possible to match tags: and content: automatically with filters.
However, I don't recommend doing this and try to enforce the use of tags: and content: for well defined searches.

I assume "inc_run_count_on_context_menu_invoke" being set to false means the Run Count shouldn't go up if I right click a file and hit Open, but in Everything 1.5a it seems that the Run Count still increments. Let me know if I'm misunderstanding how this setting works!
inc_run_count_on_context_menu_invoke handles "other non-open" invokes.

Currently the following verbs always increment run count:
  • open
  • edit
  • openas
  • opennew
  • play
Currently the following verbs never increment run count:
  • cut
  • copy
  • paste
  • properties
  • delete
  • rename
  • link
inc_run_count_on_context_menu_invoke will handle all other verbs. (or items without verbs)

inc_run_count_on_context_menu_invoke


I can't seem to see a way to customize these aliases in the Organize Filters menu
You can only set one macro.
Sorry, I should have mentioned this.
You can add more aliases with macros (but there's no UI yet)
For example:
/define imgs=image:
Jolly
Posts: 29
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:19 pm

Re: Several Feature Suggestions from My Own File Search App

Post by Jolly »

@quentinxavier have you considered modifying your app to just use everything's SDK so that handles the backend for you? That way you can control alias's, when run count gets incremented, etc.

(That's basically what I'm doing, I've got search everything running as the backend for FindAndRunRobot, but theres a few launchers and tools out there with Everything support)

You also certainly want to be using v 1.5, it's got a ton of useful features - like saved bookmarks/filters, I have my own exe: filter I use all the time.

Void - I know we have the third party software forum, but it might be nice to have a single page that links to tools leveraging Everything on the mainpage.