It is becoming more and more common to organize all our files on a large capacity hard drive. In it we keep our files of audios, videos, documents, photos, etc. As soon as we have a good amount and no matter how well we can have them organized, surely, on some occasion, we have known how to find a certain file without having to resort to the search engine to locate it. To facilitate this type of search, we are going to talk about a tool like WizFile .
In general, when we want to search for any file that we cannot find, we usually use the search engine that is built into Windows, which is powerful and allows full indexing. However, it is not the most practical in the world given its slowness when carrying out any task and it does not allow us to customize searches. Therefore, we have different alternatives on the market to replace the Windows search engine and one of them is WizFile, a powerful and free file search engine.
Powerful and comprehensive file search tool
WizFile is a tool for Windows with which we can search for any type of file that we have hosted on our computer. It is characterized by its extreme speed, since it does not need file indexing and it is extremely easy to use. This application allows you to perform personalized searches almost instantly. Allows you to sort the file search by name, size or date. In addition, it supports all kinds of hard drives, hard drive folders, and network shares.
In order to be a fast program, it is responsible for reading the master file table (MFT) of the hard disk, directly from the disk. The MFT is a special hidden file used by the NTFS system to be able to keep track of all the files and folders that make up the hard disk. This way, when you scan, you bypass Windows entirely and focus on the MFT, thereby achieving a large performance boost.
Main features
- Allows you to find files by name on your hard drive almost instantly.
- Fast scanning by reading Master File Table (MFT) directly from NTFS formatted hard drives.
- We can search by the file name or the name of a full path.
- Multiple search terms are supported.
- Allows searching for files with special characters.
- User defined filters can be used.
- The results of searches for visible files will always be up to date.
- It allows you to keep track of the size of the folders, and any changes made will be updated automatically.
- It does not require a separate database file, since all the data in the file is stored in memory.
Customize your searches with WizFile
Once we start WizFile, its main menu will appear, which we can configure to appear in Spanish and make it even easier to use. At the top we find the search bar , where we must select whether we want the search to only match the name or to match the full path. On the right we find a drop-down menu where we can filter by file type: ALL, Audio, Video, Image, Compressed, Document and Executable.
How to search
To start any search, we just have to type in the search bar and all the results will appear almost instantly. As long as the application is active, it will constantly monitor our hard drives to detect any changes to the files. In this way, any change that may occur and that may affect the current search result will be updated on the screen from the moment it occurs.
If we right-click on any of the search results, the contextual menu of the file will appear and the different functions will appear, such as being able to rename the file, open, copy the path, cut, copy, etc. If we quickly double-click on the result that interests us, a new window will immediately open in Windows Explorer with the path of the file or folder.
Use of asterisks and question marks
When performing our searches we can use an asterisk (*) to match one or more characters or use a question mark (?) To match any character . For example, if we want to find all the files that start with the letters “ba” we must write ba *. If we want to show all the files that contain a particular extension, for example, AVI, we must write * .AVI.
Search multiple items (AND / OR)
If we want to perform a search of several elements , the space bar can act as “AND”. For example, if we want to search for mp3 files that contain the word love, we can do it by typing * .mp3 love. We can also use the symbol of the vertical bar (|) that works as “O” with which we can choose several search elements . For example, if we want to search for all mp3 or avi files, we must use * .mp3 | * .avi.
Download WizFile
WizFile is a completely free file search engine that we can download from its website . It is compatible with the Windows operating system in its versions of XP, Vista, Windows 7, 8 and 10, both 32 and 64 bits . It has both an installation version and a portable version that we can run from any external storage device without the need for installation.
The latest version that we find available for WizFile is 2.06 , which came out on November 14, 2018. This is its main negative point, since it means that it has not received updates for almost two years. Even so, it does not imply that the program is fully functional.
Alternatives to WizFile
If we are looking for a tool with which we can find our files quickly and easily, we also propose a couple of alternatives to WizFile that you should take into account.
Everything
It is an application capable of finding any file that is hosted on our hard drive quickly and efficiently. In addition, it includes an HTTP server that will allow us to perform remote searches with any device on the network. It also allows you to save searches as favorites, to always have it available at any time. We can download Everything for free from the developer’s website .
SearchMyFiles
This tool has advanced search functions for all types of files without the need for installation. Allows you to search by attributes or file content. After doing a search, we can select one or more files and save the list to a text file / html / csv / xml, or copy the list to the clipboard. If we want to use SearchMyFiles we can download it for free from their website .
