Comparisons

Everywhere vs Alfred and Raycast

Updated 2026-07-31 · 4 min read

If you already run Alfred or Raycast, the question is whether their file search covers you. For many people it does.

What launchers are for

Opening things fast — apps, then bookmarks, then clipboard history, snippets, calculations, window management, workflows. File search is one capability among dozens.

Both are excellent at that job, and for apps and recently used documents their file search is instant and sufficient.

Where it stops

Alfred uses Spotlight's index for file search by default, which means Spotlight's exclusions. Its scope is also deliberately conservative — you often need the open or find keyword to search files at all, because file results would otherwise swamp app results.

Raycast is similar in shape: file search exists, is Spotlight-backed, and is not tuned for exhaustiveness.

Neither is a defect. Ranking every file equally with your apps would make a launcher worse at being a launcher.

What a dedicated index adds

• No exclusions — ~/Library, package contents, everything
• Volumes that are not mounted
• Filters on size and date across the entire disk
• Latency low enough that refinement is free

The practical answer

Keep the launcher. It is doing a job a search tool does not do — apps, clipboard, snippets, workflows.

Add a filename index only if you hit the specific walls: files in Library, files inside app packages, external drives, or a disk large enough that Spotlight-backed search has become slow enough to avoid.

If you never hit those, the launcher you already have is genuinely enough, and that is a reasonable place to stop.

Common questions

Can Alfred search files Spotlight cannot?

Alfred's file search is Spotlight-backed by default, so it inherits the same exclusions.

Do a launcher and a search app conflict?

No. They use different indexes and different hotkeys.