My favorite Linux search tools make it easier to find your files – no command line needed

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Make searching for files easier with these GUI tools.
• Each of these apps will work on most distributions.
• You can install these tools for free.

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In the early days of Linux, searching for files was a command-line affair using either locate or find. Although the tools were suitable for the job, they would sometimes fail to find what I was looking for or would require complicated regular expressions to function properly.

New users to Linux should avoid using regular expressions. This is especially true now, with the many great GUI applications available for Linux. After all, why would you bother with the command line when you can point and click your way to finding the files and folders you need?

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The GUI apps also happen to have more options and customizations available, making them more usable and user-friendly. And they work really well.

I will say that there are some GUIs specifically for searching that don’t work as well as others, so I’ve limited my list to those I know work and work well.

That said, let’s get to the list of four Linux search GUIs.

1. Catfish

Catfish has been around for quite some time. I remember using this app in the early 2000s and thinking that it wasn’t bad, but could use some work. The Catfish of today, however, is seriously good — and very fast. 

Although Catfish is the default search for the Xfce desktop, it works perfectly fine on most Linux desktops. The Catfish GUI is well-designed and easy to use. Catfish uses fuzzy search, so you don’t have to be exact with your capitalization or complete with your search strings. 

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For example, I created three files in my Documents directory: zdnet_test.ods, zdnet_test.odt, and zdnet_test.txt. I could search for zdnet, ZDNET, ZDnet, zdNet, or any variation, and Catfish found what I was looking for.

The one thing Catfish cannot do is search within files, but you can at least specify a time frame for your search, which can be helpful on systems with a large number of files.

Catfish can be installed from your distribution’s standard repositories, using your GUI app store, and is free to use.

2. FSearch

FSearch was inspired by the Everything Search tool for Windows (created by Voidtools) and runs incredibly fast. Not only is FSearch one of the fastest search tools available for Linux, but it also searches as you type; you don’t even have to finish typing the search string before results begin to appear.

FSearch supports regular search strings as well as regex (regular expressions). You can also directly open a file from within FSearch by double-clicking the desired result.

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One thing to know about FSearch: You have to add directories to the database before they can be searched. For instance, I opened Preferences, clicked Database, and added my home directory. Once that was added, it was indexed and searchable. If you don’t add directories to the database, your searches will come up empty. You can add as many directories to the database as needed.

You’ll also find both include and exclude options. For example, you might want to include your home directory, but exclude your .cache sub-folder.

From within Preferences, you can also configure when to update the database. This is an important feature as it ensures any new files you’ve added since last using FSearch will be available. You can either configure the database to be updated every time FSearch starts, or set it up for time-based updates.

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FSearch isn’t able to search within files, but it does an outstanding job of finding your files by name.

FSearch can be installed for free from your distribution’s standard repositories.

3. Snoop

Snoop is not only capable of searching for file names, but also strings within files. There is one caveat to Snoop’s ability to search within files: Snoop is only capable of searching within text files. I ran a quick test by adding the string “Linux” in both a .txt and .odt file. Snoop was able to find Linux in the .txt file, but not the .odt file. I’m assuming that is because .odt documents are compressed binary files, and Snoop isn’t capable of searching within them.

Snoop is quite easy to use, but you do have to set your Path before you run a search. You don’t have to set an explicit path. For example, if you set the path to your home directory, Snoop will also search in every child directory (such as Documents).

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One caveat to Snoop is that it doesn’t allow you to set exclude directories; you”ll see results from your .config, .cache, and similar types of directories, which means you might have a bit more trouble combing through the results.

Snoop can be installed for free from your distribution’s standard repositories.

4. Albert

Albert is more than just a file search tool — it’s also a desktop launcher. With Albert, you can search for files, open apps, run ChatGPT queries, run web searches, search Chromium bookmarks, search YouTube, and much more. You can even build your own plugins to further expand Albert ‘s features. 

Albert is the Linux app you didn’t know you needed.

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The one feature I wish Albert would add is the ability to search for strings within files. Hopefully, in future releases, this will be made possible.

One thing to keep in mind: You must enable the Files plugin, as it is not set by default. To do this, open Albert’s Settings window and go to the Plugins tab. Click the checkbox associated with Files, and you’re good to go.

Albert does have a bit of a learning curve, but once you get up to speed with it, you’ll find it’s incredibly useful.

Albert can be installed for free by downloading the installer for your distribution from the VBS download page.