FastFind — The Fastest Windows File Search

FastFind is a free search program that finds files by name on Windows. The job that File Explorer clings to for minutes at a time, it finishes before you're even done typing.

No ads, no bundled installs, no data collection. The index lives only inside your PC, and search still works even when the internet is down. Windows 10 · 11 (64-bit) · Korean

Just type the initials

Most of the time, you don't remember a file name exactly. Was it 설계도면, or 설계 도면, or just 설계도? (They all mean "blueprint.")

ㅅㄱㄷㅁ  →  설계도면_최종_v3.dwg
ㄱㅈㅅ    →  견적서_한빛건설.hwpx
ㄱㅁㅇㅎ  →  국민은행_거래내역.xlsx

Because the initials (choseong) are searched from their own dedicated data, it's actually faster than scanning the whole name — 2.8ms. And this is something Everything can't do. For anyone who names files in Korean, this one thing alone is reason enough to switch.

Type "fonts" and you get fonts

No need to memorize extensions. Type what you're after in plain words and it understands.

You can mix in other words, too. Type something like Nanum fonts · vacation photos · contract documents and it narrows to the category first, then finds the name within it. It even understands a phrase like find small excel files — it throws away "find" and keeps only the size and the extension.

We measured it side by side with Everything

Same PC · same moment · Windows 11 Pro · both programs running at once · 7 NTFS volumes · FastFind 0.38.1 vs. Everything 1.4.1.1032. With every exclusion turned off, we matched the counts at 4.66M vs. 4.72M before measuring. (For "인테리어" / interior: 88,384 vs. 88,384.)

Lower is better. Green marks where we won, orange marks where we lost. Why we didn't delete the losses is explained at the very bottom. Full comparison table

Don't trust us — check it in 30 seconds

Memory is quicker to see than to describe. Just keep both programs running and open Task Manager — that's the whole thing.

1. Ctrl + Shift + Esc → Details tab
2. Right-click a column header → Select columns → Active private working set

Note — Everything runs as 2 processes. Count only one and it looks like 2.2MB. You have to add both. (473.5 = 471.3 + 2.2)

What it can do

• Preview — pick a file and it appears on the right at once. Photos, of course, but also the first page of a PDF, an Excel sheet, a PPT slide. No more opening a file, finding it's the wrong one, and closing it again.
• Search inside files — content:contract. Pulls text from Word · Excel · PPT · Hangul (hwpx) documents to find it.
• Filtered search — ext:pdf · size:>10mb · mtime:today · type:dir · path:Downloads. They can be combined.
• Find duplicates — dupe: finds files with the same name; dupe:내용 (content) finds files with the same content. Because sizes are already in the index, it doesn't re-scan the disk.
• Filters — narrow to documents · photos · videos · music · archives in one go. Press the disk icon at the far right and you can even view a single drive only. Plug in a USB stick and it joins the list on the spot.
• Tray-resident · portable edition — close the window and it stays in the notification area. The portable edition can travel on a USB stick.

From Explorer, from the keyboard, from the command line

Just getting to a search box is a chore in itself. So we made it callable right where your hands already are.

FastFind.exe -s quote
FastFind.exe -p "C:\Work" -s quote
FastFind.exe --console ext:log > list.txt

On Windows 11 it's under Show more options at the bottom of the right-click menu — hold Shift while right-clicking to get there in one step. That's the spot Windows assigns, so it can't be moved. On Windows 10 it shows up directly.

You can build on top of it

While it's running, FastFind also brings up a small search server inside your PC. That lets other programs receive its search results. The server answers only on 127.0.0.1, so nothing outside can reach it.

GET http://127.0.0.1:9090/api/search?q=quote

We actually built MyStart this way — a browser start page that finds files on your PC directly. You can pull a file list from PowerShell or Python, and you can even slot your own actions into the results' right-click menu. How to do it is laid out in the developer docs.

The trick isn't some special compression. It reads NTFS's existing file record table (MFT) whole, and borrows the names and entry arrays straight from the index file — it never holds two copies of the same thing in memory. Files being created and deleted are tracked only through the change journal (USN journal), so it never re-scans.

Frequently asked questions

Is it really free?

Yes. No ads, no bundled installs, no feature limits.

Do I really need administrator rights?

No. But it's much faster with them. With admin rights, it reads the NTFS record table whole and builds the index in a few dozen seconds. Without them, it has to walk into folders one by one, which takes several times longer, and it skips folders it can't access.

Where does my file list get uploaded?

It doesn't. The index stays only on your PC, and searches finish on your PC. It works the same with no internet connection. Settings and the index live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\FastFind, so you can check for yourself.

When I install, I get an "Unknown publisher" warning.

We haven't attached a code-signing certificate yet, so Windows SmartScreen treats it as a file it hasn't seen before. Just proceed with More info → Run.

That said, we won't simply tell you to click through. You can verify for yourself that the file you got is really the one we built.

Get-FileHash "$HOME\Downloads\downloaded-file.exe" -Algorithm SHA256

If the value that comes out matches one below, it's the untampered original.

FastFind-0.52.1-Setup-x64.exe
  572ceaa01831f6d8b7e30bdeae9172237e02ae5835eecb86f1ab6ac924c9175d
FastFind-0.52.1-x64.zip
  527072ad0f90f98609d4521e20d6282435d59c37c754f3135c4a6a19c3341759
FastFind-0.52.1-x64.exe
  244dd05a8c4d3ae973b72e91fd48def761a6d88b4563437d181a26ecab19104e

Can I use it alongside Everything?

Yes. They don't interfere with each other. The measurements above were even done with both programs running at once.

To be honest

In the table above, we didn't delete the ones we lost. The second time you type the same query, Everything is faster (it caches results), and idle CPU is essentially a tie (0.85s vs. 0.84s). And we still don't have a code-signing certificate — it's in the works.

Everything is an excellent program, refined over nearly 20 years. If we'd cherry-picked only the wins, you'd have no reason to trust the rest of the numbers here either.

Official site fastfind.kr · Guide · Developer docs · Announcements and changelog. Bug reports and feature requests are taken there too. What you leave gets rolled into the next release.