Coming from Windows
Filename search and content search look like the same feature and are almost entirely different problems.
Everything 1.5 introduced content indexing as an option, off by default and confined to folders you nominated. That caution was well judged.
Filename search is fast because names are tiny, and the whole set fits in memory. A six-million-file volume has perhaps 300 MB of names. The *contents* of those files are measured in terabytes. Indexing them means reading every byte, parsing dozens of formats, and storing an inverted word index that is itself enormous.
So Everything's content search either read files on demand — slow, but no index — or indexed a narrow subset you chose. Neither behaves like the instant filename search the app is known for, and voidtools was right not to pretend otherwise.
Spotlight has been indexing file contents since 2005. It reads PDFs, Pages and Office documents, mail, source code and plain text, understands metadata down to camera model and audio duration, and it has already done the work by the time you ask.
mdfind "henderson contract"
mdfind -onlyin ~/Documents "kMDItemTextContent == '*invoice*'"This is the one area where the Mac is straightforwardly ahead of the Windows default, and where a switcher's instinct to replace everything is wrong.
Spotlight for content. "The document that mentions the Henderson contract." It has read the file; nothing built on filenames can answer this.
A filename index for names. "The file called henderson-contract-v3.pdf." Exhaustive, instant, and covering the places Spotlight skips.
Trying to make one tool do both produces something mediocre at each. Everything 1.5's content mode is the honest version of this: available, clearly slower, and not the point of the app.
Two places worth knowing.
Excluded locations still apply. Content inside ~/Library or a package is not indexed either, so mail attachments and app data are invisible to content search too.
Formats it does not parse. Anything without a Spotlight importer — some archives, unusual document formats, source files in less common languages — is indexed by name and metadata only. grep -r remains the fallback and is unglamorous but complete.
Learn mdfind for content, keep a filename tool for names, and stop expecting either to cover the other. That is the same arrangement most Everything users already had on Windows, where Windows Search handled document content and Everything handled names.
No. It indexes filenames and paths. Spotlight and mdfind already do content search well, and duplicating that badly would help nobody.
For documents, yes — it has already indexed them, so results are instant. Everything's content mode reads files on demand or indexes folders you nominate.
grep -r from the Terminal. Slow and complete, and the right tool when the importer does not exist.
Everywhere keeps track of every file on your Mac — including the folders Spotlight hides and drives you have unplugged. Free for a day, then $19 once.
Download for Mac