New Update UltraSearch Free Version

silversurfer

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Homepage (UltraSearch Free Version): File Search Tool UltraSearch


" UltraSearch Free looks for files and folders and presents the results in just a few seconds. The sleek tool uses the unique technology which enables the searching directly at the heart of the NTFS file system on your hard drive, the Master File Table (MFT). UltraSearch searches all directories on local drives at lightning speed and delivers what you are looking for in a clear overview. UltraSearch Free supports all current Windows operating systems. "

Unique Technology​

  • UltraSearch does not maintain an index which is stored on your harddisk, but achieves its speed by working directly on the Master File Table (MFT) of the NTFS partitions.
  • UltraSearch even identifies NTFS hardlinks.

Efficient Search​

  • Simply enter a file name or a pattern like *.exe and see the first results while you are still typing.
  • In addition, UltraSearch supports regular expressions and will search file content.
  • Exclude folders, files or file types from searches via an exclude filter.
  • Define file groups (such as movie files, text files etc.) and search for all file extensions the group contains.

Export​

  • The search results can be sorted according to different criteria, printed or exported as text and CSV file.

Search Patterns​

  • The recently used search patterns can be saved and selected from a dropdown list.
  • UltraSearch can suggest patterns or autocomplete manually entered patterns automatically.

Comfortable Handling​

  • UltraSearch can be started from the context menu of your Windows Explorer - starting a search within the selected directory could not be easier.
  • Use UltraSearch wherever you like thanks to the portable ZIP version.
  • Additional information like file size and file dates (last changes, last access and file creation) will be shown for all listed files. Naturally, the Explorer context menu is available inside UltraSearch.


Version 3.4​

7th November 2022

New features​

  • The search speed when searching for file content has been increased by no longer searching files without usable content (such as exe, dll or other system files) by default. Which file types should be searched during the content search can be set via a new settings dialog under Options > Configure file content search.
  • New instances of UltraSearch can now be started via the File > New Instance menu item or the shortcut key CTRL + N in order to be able to carry out further searches in parallel. Your wish in our feature voting platform.
  • The result list now has columns for file extension, MD5 checksum, owner and NTFS permissions.
  • File names can now be excluded from the search in the Query Composer. Your wish in our feature voting platform.
  • In the batch renaming dialog, buttons can now be used to add additional files and folders for renaming.
  • The bulk renaming dialog is now opened for renaming multiple files via the context menu or F2.

Improvements​

  • File and folder information that is already in the main memory is now retained when a drive or file path is deselected. If the drive is selected again at a later point, this information is now available without rescanning the drive.
  • The search speed of the file content search has been significantly improved through further parallelization when reading the files.
  • When loading a search without a search pattern, the current search pattern is now retained.
  • "Size" and "Occupied" columns are now sorted by descending size by default. Your wish in our feature voting platform.
  • When using date, size or file group filters, an * does not have to be entered additionally to start a search according to the selected filter criteria.
  • File and folder information for search paths that are no longer used can now be deleted from the internal cache via the context menu of the drive list.
  • Minor improvements to the status bar have been made.

Bugfixes​

  • File system changes on mapped network drives are now recognized correctly.
  • Other small bug fixes and improvements have been made.
 
Last edited:

Stopspying

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I've been using Everything to search for files for some time now, it is quick and works fine.

From what I see here a couple of differences struck me immediately; with UltraSearch you can define searches better and Ultrasearch can show thumbnails. Is there anyone here who has used both and if so what do you prefer about either of them?

I'm happy with Everything, I just want a quick and reliable search app, nothing more really.
 

Jan Willy

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I've been using Everything to search for files for some time now, it is quick and works fine.

From what I see here a couple of differences struck me immediately; with UltraSearch you can define searches better and Ultrasearch can show thumbnails. Is there anyone here who has used both and if so what do you prefer about either of them?

I'm happy with Everything, I just want a quick and reliable search app, nothing more really.
UltraSearch does its job very well on my laptop for many years. No experience with Everything.
 

silversurfer

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I am using both tools, 'Everything' is more simple, but so it's probably easier to use for less tech-savvy people...

UltraSearch is more advanced, Note: Something that some people dislike, UI shows a small advertising for it's Pro version:

US.png

Here more info about features of UltraSearch Free:
 

Stopspying

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I am using both tools, 'Everything' is more simple, but so it's probably easier to use for less tech-savvy people...

UltraSearch is more advanced, Note: Something that some people dislike, UI shows a small advertising for it's Pro version:

View attachment 270562

Here more info about features of UltraSearch Free:
Thanks for the information, I'll try what you are doing, running them alongside each other. I like Everything in some respects because of its relative simplicity, I just want an efficient search tool and Everything far exceeds what MS offers IMO. But the aditional controls and options on Ultrasearch seem worth having for occasions like those times when I don't want to have to scroll through 100s of results. The optional Office-like ribbon is a nice touch. I've got quite a few partitions so setting UltraSearch up to find what I want, where I think it is, takes a bit longer. A 'search PC' would be good, unless it is a paid for option that I have not seen. Overall, I can see that having the two search tools can be beneficial.
 

silversurfer

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What is New in UltraSearch Free?​


UltraSearch Version 4.0 is out. From now on you can find the changelog for UltraSearch here!

Version 4.0.1​

  • The search syntax now offers the "owner:" property, which can be used to restrict the search to files and folders with a specific file owner.
  • The exclusion filter can now also be used to exclude files with a specific file owner from the search.
  • A single click on the icon in the system tray now brings the application to the foreground.
  • Fixed a bug where icons in the ribbon bar were not displayed, if the window was not displayed on a scaled monitor.
  • Fixed a bug where UltraSearch would unintentionally display a popup notification about a new search in the background.
  • Fixed a bug where the width of the preview area automatically decreased after each minimization of the application.
  • The use of the F3 keyboard shortcut to switch between the results list and the input field has been improved: when switching to the input field, the complete search pattern is now selected.
  • Searching for paths with spaces now works correctly again.
  • Using the Query Composer, it is now possible to search for multiple file types simultaneously. To do this, the file types must be entered in the corresponding file type field separated by a space.
  • The 'Recording date' column is now sorted according to its date values and no longer lexicographically.
  • The Query Composer generated an incorrect search pattern when searching for file names with spaces. This error has been fixed.
  • An error when installing the software under a user account with restricted rights has been fixed.
  • In some cases, no results were displayed when searching decrypted drives. This bug has been fixed.
  • When starting the application, errors occurred in rare cases if network drives were active in the drive list. This issue has been resolved.
  • The appearance of the exclusion filter dialog has been slightly revised.
  • Screen scaling for multiple monitors with different resolutions has been improved.
7 August 2023

Version 4.0​


This update contains 2 Community Features from our Feature Voting Platform: Spaces and commas as part of the search term and improved sorting logic.

New features​

  • When entering a search term, spaces are now no longer considered part of the search term, but as an “AND”-operator. This means that both terms must appear somewhere in the name. New Folder now finds not only folders with the name "New Folder", but also "Folder New" or "New Test Folder". Likewise, a comma is now considered an or-connection, so only one of the two terms must occur in the name for the item to be included in the search results. (Your request in feature voting)
  • When entering a search term, brackets can now be used to search even more precisely. For example, entering (readme, license) *.txt will find all text files with "readme" or "license" in the name.
  • All columns that are also supported by Windows Explorer can now be displayed. Among the more than 250 metadata columns available in this way are such things as the width, height and color depth of images or the number of pages in documents. To do this, select "View > Visible Columns > More Columns". The "Date Taken" column is now available directly in this drop-down menu.
  • The demo version of UltraSearch can now be activated by entering a license key and thus become a full version. This requires an active internet connection. The version available via the customer area can still be installed without an internet connection.

Improvements​

  • Search performance was improved when only a subfolder and not a whole drive is selected as search path.
  • All pinned drives are now automatically indexed in the background for faster searches when needed.
  • A new button (X) has been added to the filter bar that displays the currently active filters, which can be used to deactivate all filters with a single click.
  • A function for converting file and directory names to upper and lower case has been added to the mass renaming dialog.
  • An option has been added to the mass renaming dialog to evaluate position values from the right. An example application for this is deleting the last X characters from a file name, which is now possible.
  • The mass rename dialog now supports regular expressions when deleting specific text from file names.
  • The summary in the mass renaming dialog has been improved. The dialog now shows the number of files actually renamed in relation to the total number of files.
  • When sorting is selected, date columns are now sorted in descending order - from the youngest to the oldest date - by default. (Your request in feature voting).
  • File operations dialog: When using the log or undo script function, the information is now automatically written to an alternative file if access to the specified file is not possible.
  • The file group filter is now no longer applied to folders. As a result, it is now possible to search for specific file groups and folders at the same time.
  • UltraSearch is no longer started automatically with administrator rights. With administrator rights, the indexing of local drives is still faster, because of the direct hard disk access possible this way. You can control via "Options > Application" whether UltraSearch should always be started as administrator.
  • The filter bar directly below the ribbons now also shows whether files and/or folders are included in the search, in addition to the other search criteria. A click on the respective filter in the filter bar opens a drop-down menu to change the setting.
  • Offline files are now no longer automatically downloaded in the background when searching for file content.
  • When renaming a file, only the file name without the file extension is now selected, analogous to the behavior in Windows Explorer.
  • The option to start UltraSearch with Windows ("Options > Application > Start with Windows") is now also available when UltraSearch is started without admin rights.

Bugfixes​

  • File preview for image files on OneDrive now works correctly when UltraSearch is run without admin rights.
  • On program startup, the size of the main window is now correctly restored, even if the window was not completely visible on the screen when closing the program.
  • When entering invalid paths in the drive list, an error occurred under certain circumstances. The problem has been fixed.
  • Fixed an error when browsing USB sticks, where in rare cases incorrect results were displayed when the stick was removed from the USB port and added again.
  • When pressing the stop button, the already found results were removed from the results list. This error has been fixed.
  • Fixed a bug where the "Disable splash screen" option was not displayed.
  • Indexing drives without administrator rights now does not cause the user interface to be blocked for a short time.
22 June 2023

Download UltraSearch Portable

 

silversurfer

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Version 4.0.2​

  • Searching for file content now returns results when searching for sentences with commas or brackets.
  • An error in the search with regular expressions has been fixed. To be able to use reserved characters of the search syntax such as brackets, commas or spaces in the search term, the search term must be enclosed in quotation marks. Wildcards are still allowed within the quotation marks. More detailed information and examples can be found in the program help.
  • The input of Japanese characters and words in syllabic script now works correctly.
  • When exporting to Excel, hyperlinks are now created in the export file for all exported file paths. Previously, only the first 65530 paths were hyperlinked due to a limitation of the Excel format.
  • If the program is started by Autostart with Windows or minimized to the system tray when closed, it now informs the user in the notification area of the taskbar about the shortcut that can be used to bring the program back to the foreground.
22 August 2023

Download UltraSearch Portable

 

silversurfer

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Version 4.0.3​

  • A problem with starting UltraSearch on Arabic systems was fixed.
  • When entering regular expressions with quotes, an error occurred. This problem has been fixed.
  • The column "Keywords" can now be activated via the right-click menu of the column header of the result list. Keywords from Office documents and PDFs are displayed in this column.
4 October 2023

Download UltraSearch Portable

 
Last edited:

silversurfer

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Version 4.1​

New features​

  • Intelligent property recognition: UltraSearch now automatically recognizes sizes and dates as well as file groups when entering a search and evaluates them accordingly. The term images 11/01/2023 no longer only lists files whose file names contain this information, but rather all images with a change date of 11/01/2023 are found.
  • Search for whole words: Quotation marks are no longer used to search for an exact search term, but can be used to search for whole words.
  • Search syntax: The size: property now supports entering size ranges. For example, entering size: 1MB - 10MB will find all files with a size between 1 megabyte and 10 megabytes.
  • The search syntax now offers a datetaken: property, which can be used to search for photos based on the date they were taken.
  • The search syntax now offers a keyword: property, which can be used to limit the search to files with certain “marks” in their metadata.
  • UltraSearch now supports the Windows 11 context menu and is available at the top level of the Windows 11 Explorer context menu.
  • For inexperienced users, UltraSearch now offers an input help to the right of the search, which helps to define exact search criteria. The new input help replaces the "Query Composer" in the ribbon menu.
  • Additional options for searching by file size and file date are now available in the input help (formerly known as “Query Composer”).
  • On the right side of the input field, there is now a button (“Favorites Star”) for saving the current search settings.
  • Columns for path length, file path and path depth have been added. To display these columns, select “View > Visible Columns > More Columns”.

Improvements​

  • The file preview now shows additional file information depending on the selected file type. For example, for audio files, bit rate, length, artist are displayed; for images, width, height and recording date are displayed.
  • Date and size filters are now located on the “Home” ribbon for even quicker access.
  • The input mask for file name searches in the input help have been revised: The input fields “Begins with:” and “Ends with” have been removed and replaced by an input field for entering a regular expression.
  • The ribbon for selecting file operations is now located next to the start ribbon for better availability and is permanently displayed.
  • Offline files are no longer automatically downloaded in the background when searching for file content.
  • When using the input help to create the search term, previously set filters such as file groups or file content are now retained if they are not changed by the settings in the input help.
  • Active file groups can be deactivated again by clicking on them in the drop-down area of the file group filter.
  • The settings “Include subfolders” and “Ignore umlauts and accents” can now be found under “Options > General > Search”.
  • An ongoing search can now be stopped by pressing the “Remove” button.
  • To be able to use reserved characters of the search syntax such as brackets, commas or spaces when entering a regular expression, the search term no longer needs to be enclosed in quotation marks. All syntax-specific characters are considered part of the regular expression.
  • The performance when sorting columns that require the entire file path for sorting (file path, path length, etc.) has been improved.
  • The “Item Checkboxes” option has been renamed to “Checkboxes”.

Bugfixes​

  • When searching on network drives, the search could restart after an indefinite period. This issue has been resolved.
  • In some cases, incorrect results were returned when searching for dates because the current time zone was not considered. This issue has been resolved.
  • Fixed a bug when searching with regular expressions, where invalid expressions still returned results.
  • An error occurred when entering regular expressions with quotation marks. This issue has been resolved.
  • When searching for file names with brackets or if the search term was bracketed incorrectly, too many results were displayed in certain cases. This issue has been resolved.
  • Selected files were not considered when using the mass rename dialog if they were selected via checkboxes. This bug has been fixed.
  • An error occurred when moving or deleting files with the Delete Empty Folders option enabled.
  • The input help sometimes still contained old input data when used again. This bug has been fixed.
  • An issue with using quotation marks in the search term has been fixed.
  • When using the input helper, the search was unnecessarily restarted in some cases. The behavior has been corrected.
  • Further dark mode issues have been fixed.
  • Other small bug fixes and improvements have been made.
6 December 2023

Download UltraSearch Portable

 

silversurfer

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Version 4.1.1​

  • The user is now notified if one or more of the search paths are unavailable.
  • Corrected a problem where the paths for files and subfolders of a folder were not updated correctly when the folder was renamed via Windows Explorer.
  • An error could occur when entering a semicolon in the search form. This problem has been fixed.
  • Fixed an error in sorting search results.
  • In some cases switching between the input field and the result list with F3 did not work correctly. This problem has been fixed.
  • Other minor bug fixes and improvements have been made.
22 January 2024

Download UltraSearch Portable

 

silversurfer

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Version 4.1.2​

  • Fixed a bug when updating the drive list: When connecting or disconnecting USB devices, it was sometimes not recognized correctly.
  • Fixed a bug where it was possible to set invalid date values in the date filters.
  • Search syntax: Regular expressions are now correctly evaluated in conjunction with the path: property.
  • Checking for updates now works again in the Free Edition.
  • Some other minor corrections and improvements have been made.

Download UltraSearch Portable

 

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