I just installed the 64 bit Portable version on Windows 10.
My first search found 5 Word files containing a search word. I know for certain that there are 10 Word files containing that word and all 10 files are in subfolders of C:\Users\<MyUsername>.
Search is set to "everything", there are no exclusions, no hidden files.
Could you please copy one of the missing files to the clipboard from Windows Explorer and paste it in the Everything Search box (Ctrl + V), does Everything find this file? -Perhaps there's a hidden character in the filename.
What is the exact search you have been using?
What is the exact full path and filename of a missing file?
Is there anything shown in the status bar?
I was just using the string "gapps". That is what I used on Copernic search, so I thought that would work on ET.
Okay, so I changed the search query to "*.docx content:gapps" and that worked much better...but no quite good enough.
I did another search on a different search string using "*.docx content:oreo". Copernic found 10 docx files while ET found 7. This is not working well!
Econdoc wrote: ↑Sun Mar 03, 2019 11:37 pm
I appreciate all the assistance the you have provided. However, my time is limited. Continuing to use ET will not fulfill my needs.
Thats funny, if users trying free programs but are not willing to spend time for testing or answer questions if problems arise.
Comparing one tool with another doesn't make sense if you don't know one of it at all
and you are not willing to learn it.
horst.epp wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 8:56 am
if users trying free programs but are not willing to spend time for testing or answer questions if problems arise.
Comparing one tool with another doesn't make sense if you don't know one of it at all
I second that (you read my mind lol)
@Econdoc, i was once a user of Copernic Desktop Search (at that time, my needs were mainly of content searching, but the longer i use, my system became slooower). My main need now is of file searching (which Everything handles more than perfectly than any other equivalent and quicker too). I rarely search file contents (i use Everything for that matter too).
peterflint wrote: ↑Sat Mar 09, 2019 4:54 pm
If this is happening again and again, then you may try Duplicate Files Deleter for finding all the files easily. Check out the latest version...
OP is not looking for duplicate files finder/deleter. Its about Content Searching.
found this thread when looking for a solution to the same problem.
To any ET newbies, the very first thing to check when you cant find files you KNOW to be on your system - is that you haven't got "Enable Regex" ticked unless you actually intended to use it. Took me months to break out of that trap, and I have no idea why it kept enabling itself. I have used it perhaps twice in the 4 years I've been using ET.
nanycase: Your's is the single most useful utility ever produced for Windoze and I'm keen to assist your attempt to keep it that way, so any tests you need running, just say the word.
I frequently use ET for reasons other than simple searching. Ferinstance, uploading a file to, say, virustotal, you COULD navigate to wherever the suspect file is, if you have a clue where to find it, or you can simply use ET to display it, right click on the file, copy the full path and paste that into the Virustotal file explorer.
And I wanted to do that with a file I knew was buried deep in the /users nested structure. Couldn't find it. Randomly selected a few folders in that sub-structure, picked a few files and searched for them (using the F2-copy-paste method to ensure exact matching). Found most, but definitely not all.
So then I created a filter to isolate just c:\users and took a look at was was listed, while I was simultaneously browsing some of the folders with Xplorer2 on my 2nd monitor. Bear in mind that this is AFTER doing all the above, ensuring the disk is clean, indexes rebuilt etc. There were too many to count manually (but see below), but it looked like EVERY FOLDER was listed, but dozens, possibly hundreds of individual files weren't and the weirdest aspect was that in some of the folders, SOME of the files were visible to ET and some weren't. I even checked their attributes to see if the ET invisible ones were "hidden". They weren't.
As a trivial example, I have a folder:
C:\Users\Harry\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo\ which contains 15 items, most of which are links (extension .lnk). All are visible to ET except one called "Bluetooth device", which is real and active. The only obvious difference was that the Bluetooth device extension was capitalised and all the others were lower case. No ET filters or conditions were set which would justify that distinction.
So the problem is real. And it's not new. I've only come looking for a solution tonight because it's beginning to irritate me. My gut feeling is that is caused by windows permissions issues because I've only ever seen such obvious omissions with files on my system drive. I have 19 drives configured on my system, with a total of 30 Tb storage and a little under 9 million objects. (There is no way to manage that lot WITHOUT ET) and I've never failed to find a file I know to be on one of the other 18. My sanity depends on it! And I've had related issues with X2. Windows blocks access to certain folders - on the system drive - even though I'm an administrator. If I want to force the issue, I either have to switch to the admin account, or use the Winaero tweak to "Take Ownership" of the stubborn folders, but I don't like doing that. Windoze gets upset.
Finally, and even weirder, though possibly illustrating my guess re permissions:
I used the Explorer2 option to tell me the entire file and folder count under C:\Users
Result 4301 sub folders, 9599 files. (total objects 13,900, in case you run out of fingers)
Then I used ET and just typed in C:\Users
and it returned 30,976 objects, so it's clearly doing a pretty thorough job of cataloguing what's there, but, despite that, some files are very prominently missing!
I'd previously ignored it because I didn't have any exclusions listed, so why would it matter?
In any case, unchecking it and rebuilding immediately restored the missing visibility.
I'll take the opportunity, while I'm here, to describe what I consider to be one of the most useful "tricks" you can use ET for; viz watching real time activity on your system. (It was its "failure" to perform this function 20 mins ago which reminded me I ought to see if you'd responded to my previous post)
If you switch off all filters, so you're potentially viewing every file on your system, then click the "Date Modified" column to that the most recent files are at the top of the list, you'll see every new file as it's created on your system. (Warning: This will frighten the horses!)
It's particularly useful if
a) you're feeling paranoid and want to see what's going on behind the scenes.
b) you have semi automatically updating software (the ones that ask your permission) and want to see where it downloads its update files to or, indeed, what files it proceeds to update.
c) you've just told some application to save a file and it appears to have done it but it aint where you expect to find it. (That's what I was trying to do just before logging in here. The images I'd captured weren't appearing on the ET list because they were buried in the /Users sub structure - the fix above rendered them visible)
(etc)
Ferinstance, I have licensed copies of things like CCleaner installed on several machines I own or control. It frequently updates but I prefer to control the when and where. Left to its own devices, on getting permission, it will download, update, then delete the downloaded file. I prefer to capture that download, before it's deleted so I can run it, when it suits me, on my other machines.
Hold off on giving permission till you've prepared this "trap": If you arrange the ET view as above, and have an X2 or Explorer window open to a suitable folder, you can see the update file coming in and can just drag and drop it into the waiting folder while it's performing the update. Don't hang about though, 'cos it only takes a few seconds to perform the update and delete itself. (Other software updates are more forgiving and will stop and ask for UAC permission before proceeding, so you have plenty of time to copy those across)
I have a 650GB network drive mounted on my computer. It has an extensive folder tree, sometimes 12 subfolders deep. When I would search with Everything, it would only find results that were less than 3 or 4 folders depth. The same solution of unchecking "Enable exclude list" worked for me. I had checked it previously, in order to add my Recent files folder on my C: drive to the exclude list.
After unchecking the exclude list and reindexing, I was able to find all the deep files. On my C: and network drive, Everything was indexing ~300,000 objects before, 700,000 objects after. Found this fix here by searching on this forum with google for "folder index subfolders deep".
There ist also an unexpected behaviour with excluded folders:
when you add a subfolder of an excluded folder into the "folders to scan", the contents are ignored.
I think, when you explicitly include a folder, it should never be ignored.
The exclude is even prioritized when you define a junction in a differrent, not excluded folder, using a completely different name: it won't find it.
