Everything is great on Windows to pick files/folders.

From the linux command-line, I like fzf ( https://github.com/junegunn/fzf ), that you can instruct to use the faster fd ( https://github.com/junegunn/fzf#environment-variables ). Fzf even offers keybindings for your shell. For example, it binds Alt+C to fuzzy-finding a directory, and Enter cds to it ( https://github.com/junegunn/fzf#key-bindings-for-command-lin... ).

Fzf is great for other things too; here is a fish function to bing Alt+G to fuzzy-pick a Git branch and jump to it:

   function fish_user_key_bindings
     bind \eg 'test -d .git; or git rev-parse --git-dir > /dev/null 2>&1; and git checkout (string trim -- (git branch | fzf)); and commandline -f repaint'
     bind \eG 'test -d .git; or git rev-parse --git-dir > /dev/null 2>&1; and git checkout (string trim -- (git branch --all | fzf)); and commandline -f repaint'
   end

Haven't used this, but heard of it years ago, and it aims to be similar. https://github.com/dotheevo/angrysearch/

Thanks! That's super nice and very close to what I was looking for all this time.

I just learned how to mount all my Windows drive under /mnt using (using the `disks` software), so hopefully this should index those files too.

For mlocate you can edit /etc/updatedb.conf to specify what to index. One trick I use is "locate -Ai" that lets you search for multiple patterns and makes it case insensitive. So you can use "locate -Ai linux .pdf" to search for all pdf files related to Linux.

Also for gnome there is tracker which does search and indexing built into the system. I think by default its set for minimal use but it can be configured by the settings/search panel to index many locations. I haven't played with is much recently though.

Great tip.. thanks! I've kinda of mounted all my drives including Windows/NTFS/etc using fstab now. Do you reckon this will have any negative impact performancewise?

Just wondering since Linux knows about these drives but doesn't mount them automatically at startup.. so if this is out of a reason or just convention?

fd (https://github.com/sharkdp/fd) is the best command line search utility IMO. Its crazy fast and always found what I was looking for. If you want a GUI alternative, check out Drill (https://github.com/yatima1460/Drill). Although the development seems stalled, it works well for normal usecases.

'Everything' is a LIFE SAVER.

Hmm.. I seem to remember creating an excel file for this client a while back.. open Everything -> filter client.xlsx .. boom. Or maybe I didn't name it properly, at all? Well still just a simple '*.xlsx' and sort by date, I can generally find anything this way. As long as you let Everything open on windows startup, it will be instant after use.

FSearch is inspired by Everything. https://github.com/cboxdoerfer/fsearch

For general file search at ludicious speeds like Everything does on windows its pretty good :)

BTW, mlocate is obsoleted by plocate, which is much faster and is actually maintained.

https://plocate.sesse.net/

plocate depends on mlocate, it doesn't replace it

Hi,

I'm the author of plocate. Since version 1.1.0, plocate no longer depends on mlocate for building its database, but is a full replacement.

Awesome! Thank you.

To traverse my files I use the combo ranger + autojump. It is not GUI and you need to traverse a directory at least once before accessing it automatically, but I just wanted to mention this. Another (CLI) software that seem to do what you want is fzf.

Seriously - I miss it as well. But my access patterns have changed as well. I spend more time on the terminal, and with autojump, the alternatives (with similar features) on Linux aren't really that useful to my usage.