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Top free tool for non-indexed searches for files and contents. Boolean and regex options. Searches MS Office files using Ifilters. The paid for version, Filelocator Pro, offers many enhancements eg combined boolean and regex searches, multiple search tabs, ability to toggle back to previous search results, and has inbuilt index searching as an option. See More
XYplorer probably has the best "bang for the buck". It surely has its cons but considering what one gets for a "small" one-time investment, probably no other comparable feature rich product offers a better license. The lifetime license ($63.95) includes all future updates for free, lets you install on any number of computers, and includes the portable version. See More
When browsing large number of files and using advanced features like preview, the program may become unresponsive. However, it is fair to say that given enough search and preview options and considering file security, network file share performance, malware or anti-malware activity, it is reasonable to expect situations where long delays could occur with any file manager. See More
Uses a very flexible scripting language that you can do many things with it. After learning it, one can get many other tools replaced in favor of a single centralized, extremely customize-able command center, plus writing one own's personal routines to fully perform finely-tuned file management. However, doing basic things like stringing together common renaming and moving tasks takes very little knowledge. Scripting is easy for beginners, is supported by the developer and the community, yet can be incredibly deep and powerful. See More
Especially in thumbs view it would at times be nice to be able to group the files in the display. Sometimes it might also be nice in others views as well. XY is only able to sort the files in the display but not able to group, though it does support arbitrary sort order and advanced link types. See More
XYplorer is great for heavy keyboard users. Its many keyboard shortcuts are also fully configurable. Additionally, XYplorer offers multiple ways to navigate to file system using only a handful of keys. That said, one can do things with a mouse like press an icon in a custom column to run a script on the corresponding file or folder. Mousers are happy too. See More
Known as Branch View in XYPlorer. Select a folder or multiple folders and select Branch View to get a flat file view of the selected folder/s with files only, folders only or both. Alternatively, select Branch View to get a flat view of the current folder. Results can then be filtered, sorted, organised, moved, copied, renamed etc accordingly. Extremely useful if you have a lot of files to organise. See More
Add a custom icon to a set of files or folders based on file type, location, name (or part of name) for example: all files named XYplorer to have 'icon x' or all folders that contain the word XYplorer in the name to have 'icon y', size, date, name length, path etc. You can customize an infinite number of icons for an infinite number of files and/folders or even just a single one based on what ever combination you want. No extra files are created like with other programs that place an icon in each directory. The customized icons are stored within the "Icons" folder of the XYPlorer directory while the list of customized file/folder patterns as well as which particular icon to point to are stored within XYplorer .ini file. It's set and forget as all file/folder icon associations are applied globally. Meaning that all new files or folders that match your predefined pattern or instruction if you like will automatically be displayed with your chosen icon. Customized icons are also very very flexible. It's so easy to add, remove, change and fine tune your settings to your liking. To turn the customized icons on or off is simply a matter of pressing the handy toggle button. Further flexibility comes with the ability to turn on or off individual custom icons with a simple tick box. It is a bit of a learning curve to get the pattern (instruction to select certain files/folders to be associated with a particular icon) just right. But as results are immediately visible, it makes it easy to adjust accordingly to exactly what you want. There are some examples of these patterns included within the "Customize File Icons" UI or settings box to get you started by selecting the "I" button. A more extensive list is available in the XYPlorer help file. Once you get the hang of it though, the same patterns can be applied to other customizations in XYPlorer for example color filters or Ghost filters. See More
Windows File Explorer, over time, will eventually allow you to create path lengths, usually accidentally, that are "very long" (ie too many characters based on Windows standards). And then, out of nowhere, you no longer have full functionality available to the directories and files in that long path. eg: you won't be able to open a file, or rename it, or copy it, or delete it, etc. In order to regain full functionality available to the files/ directories in that "long path", you have to go and manually shorten the "long path" length by deleting characters in filenames, directory names, etc, In other words, Microsoft will "allow" you to break the rules (.. ie in most cases without warning ), but then won't support the broken rules. This is where XYPlorer is super useful -- especially when you move big chunks of data from A to B -- you no longer have to care about long path name issues. See More
Renaming can also be combined extremely easily in basic scripts for chaining and combining the strengths of the different types of renaming available. Can also rename based on metadata.You don't really need to "learn scripting" to chain a bunch of renaming commands. Multiscripts can even give you a menu of your chained renames - with nested menus if desired. It takes very little knowledge to be able to do this. One can even run such a script by drag and drop. See More
In windows file explorer when you want to select a file of the current directory, you have to type exactly the same name from the start of the file. In xyplorer you can type just part of it. Ex: filename "resume_work" With xyplorer you could just type work and it would show the file being marked (this is configurable). See More
Easily renames one (or many) files right from the context menu. It supports search and replace, batch, regex, changing extension, copy/paste a while list of filenames, spaces to unscore (and vice versa), changing capitalization, and so much more. Also, the "Preview" feature makes it easy to verify changes before applying them. Fantastic! See More
Searching is extremely fast and thorough - no matter if you're looking for items by name, attribute, content, or trying to find duplicates (either with a selected hash or byte-to-byte). It allows you to search within your files, looking for specific terms, including wildcards and regular expressions. It also supports regular expressions and filter/sort your search results by file size, file modification date, etc. Can save complicated, often-used searches easily as "Search Templates" to reuse, tweak, or use in a script. Can set to instantly narrow a list as you type, or highlight if you prefer, with multiple options such as "Prefer Beginning of Column" or use currently sorted column. Supports Standard wildcards, Boolean, and Regex. See More
Any improvements to the software are happening at a glacial pace which is making this software more and more outdated for a long time now. Only a few minor improvements a year. User suggestions for improvements are routinely rejected or explained away. As for suggesting new features -- you'll quickly abandon all hope. Only realistic reason to visit their support forums is to read Kilmatead's posts -- for anything else prepare to be disappointed. UPDATE (and slightly offtopic): Kilmatead seems to be no longer active on the forums, so the next best thing is xplorer2 blog which seems to often feature interesting technical topics. See More
The interface is essentially unchanged since its Windows XP days, with very little customization possible. Organization of features is convoluted, with some simple ones, like individual icons to quickly switch views missing. The stagnant cluttered design can make even long-time users drop the program. See More
Let's say you are located in a given subdir that has 5 subdirs. You can see the contents of all the files located in those subdirs as if they were stored in a single dir. Very useful when you want to locate files that you don't know exactly where they are located and searching is not an option. See More
Let's say that today you are going to update a letter located in subdir X, continue developing a spreadsheet located in subdir Y, review a presentation located in subdir Z, review a project located in subdir W, etc.. You can drag and drop all these files to the Scrap Area and open and work with them, save them, open again, continue tomorrow and the files will be updated in their respective original locations. No need to navigate and navigate and navigate. See More