Recoll - A powerful tool to find your lost documents
This article is 3 years old. In tech that counts: links may have died and some information aged since.
A few weeks ago, I found myself facing a colossal challenge: tracking down a document lost somewhere in the depths of my computer. We've all been there - you're absolutely sure you saved that file somewhere, but where the hell is it?! Luckily, I'd just stumbled across Recoll, a full-text search tool that saved my bacon.
Recoll is based on the Xapian library and features a Qt graphical interface. It's compatible with Unix and Linux systems, and the great thing is that it's also available for Windows and macOS. Something for everyone!
So why is it so cool?
Well, the tool supports an impressive number of document formats, which makes it extremely powerful when searching, and it also offers a web interface that lets you run searches remotely. Imagine you're away from home and need to find a document on your home computer. No problem - Recoll has you covered.
And that's not all - Recoll is free, open source, and multilingual, and it also benefits from regular updates.
Now, let's get down to business: how does it work?
Recoll simply uses an index to perform its searches, a bit like Google Desktop Search used to do back in the day (old-timers, you know what I'm talking about). That means it crawls through all your documents and builds a kind of database that makes searching much easier afterwards. No more spending hours digging through folders - Recoll will do that work for you and deliver results straight away. By the way, if you're on Windows, also consider optimizing Windows search indexing [FR] for better results.
To install Recoll, just follow the instructions on their website. Once installed, launch it and let it index your documents. This can take a while, but don't worry - it's a one-time process. After that, you can perform full-text searches across all your documents in no time at all.
Recoll's interface is very simple and intuitive. Just type your query into the search bar and let Recoll do the rest. Results appear within seconds, and you can refine your search using filters or by tweaking the settings.
Recoll is also highly customizable. You can choose which folders to index, exclude certain file types, or set the frequency of index updates. In short, you have total control over how Recoll works.
And if you're a command-line fan, you'll be pleased to know that Recoll also offers a command-line version as well as an API.
To run a search, simply type
recoll -t "your query"
and you're done!
In short, Recoll is a powerful tool that makes finding documents on your computer a whole lot easier. Whether you're a casual user or a power user (like mechanical keyboards... lol), I highly recommend giving it a try. You won't be disappointed! And if you're looking for other ways to speed up file searching on your machine, or to convert your documents into a more usable format, there's plenty out there.