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Possible Duplicate:
Best way to confidently search files and contents in Windows without using an indexing service?

What in your opinion is the best Window's software for searching file content?

The search utility in Windows offers this but often misses valid files from the search results.

nav
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    Possible duplicate http://superuser.com/questions/26593/best-way-to-confidently-search-files-and-contents-in-windows-without-using-an-i – ukanth Nov 06 '09 at 12:16
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    no duplicate, the other threrad asking for content search 'without an indexing service' ... big difference. –  Nov 06 '09 at 12:38
  • Well, that is *the best* way, isn't it? ;-) – Arjan Nov 06 '09 at 12:47
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    There is one new option, which hasn't been discussed in this thread so far. It is the [File Content Finder](http://geosystemsdev.com/products/file-content-finder/) app from the [App Store](https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/p/file-content-finder/9mzc4sk6j6bp?activetab=pivot:overviewtab) (*disclaimer*: I'm the developer) – Geo Systems Apr 29 '19 at 12:10

2 Answers2

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Agent Ransack is a free tool for finding files and information on your hard drive fast and efficiently. When searching the contents of files Agent Ransack displays the text found so you can quickly browse the results without having to separately open each file!

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Gaff
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joe
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    Some shortcomings of Agent Ransack: 1) It must be invoked from GUI. No quick shortcut key. 2) It can only search only ONE specific folder and sub-folders. 3) Still too many mouse clicks involved. I expected some more quick tools like Launchy. – smwikipedia Jul 09 '16 at 04:33
  • Um... that actually sounds like good options. 2.) I sure as hell wouldn't want it reading all the bytes of all the files on my hard disk; the more scoped the search is, the better. 1.) What a nightmare anything other than a GUI usage would be. Command line returning what... a list of filenames, or some complex structure with filenames and matching positions, which no program could decipher or do anything useful with anyway? This kind of needs a human in the loop. and 3) too many mouse clicks? Seriously? – Triynko Aug 29 '17 at 21:11
  • I was used UltraSearch, it is good but don't have preview for search found in file content. It is just preview the whole file content. Agent Ransack can preview the file content at search found. Thank you. – vee Feb 08 '21 at 06:12
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I use Agent Ransack which is a 'lite' version of File Locator Pro. You can get it here.

innaM
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