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- URL: https://x.com/CharlieMQV/status/1957552694186418228
- Author: Charlie Malmqvist (@CharlieMQV)
- Posted: 2025-08-18 21:18:26
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1/ @CharlieMQV
Existing search tools on Windows suck. Even with an SSD, it’s painfully slow.
So I built a prototype of Nowgrep.
It bypasses most of the slow Windows nonsense, and just parses the raw NTFS.
On an SSD, this ends up faster than ripgrep, even on a cached run (Nowgrep bypasses most Software caching).
Demo: Filtering 2 million and searching ~270K files under C:/ for the substring “Hello”.
I have many ideas to make these an even smoother experience. Let me know if this is interesting, and I might pursue it further to make a shippable product with good UX.
Branches: 2025-08-18-Cenaceneri-you-have-my-preorder-my-dream-would-be-to-have, 2025-08-18-b1tcminerpljy-have-you-seen-https-github-com-ggreer-the-silver, 2025-08-18-_chenglou-is-there-regex-support-would-be-a-more-adequate, 2025-08-18-0xTriboulet-make-it-replace-start-button-search-with-this, 2025-08-18-birch_js-hey-bunjavascript-could-this-approach-improve-on, 2025-08-19-StabilityTheory-cool-project-but-imo-searching-for-file-names-is, 2025-08-19-0xE1-https-github-com-dfs-minded-indexer-plus-plus, 2025-08-19-fluiddesign201-parses-the-raw-ntfs-installs-a-io-driver-or-the, 2025-08-19-_benwick-reminds-me-of-wizfile-it-directly-parses-the-ntfs, 2025-08-19-LainShep-it-is-kinda-shocking-how-fast-cpus-can-churn, 2025-08-19-TheCameronKramr-every-windows-dev-should-know-about-search, 2025-08-19-macsmol-so-whats-the-search-speed-in-terms-of-of-mib-s, 2025-08-19-daviskens-hmmm-might-be-nice-certainly-something-is-needed, 2025-08-19-bl0rq-been-using-ultrasearch-for-years-kinda-getting, 2025-08-19-__malkia__-would-you-add-support-dor-devdrive-refs, 2025-08-19-Immysteryman2-is-it-better-than-dtsearch, 2025-08-19-psychip-im-working-on-exact-same-project-with-extra-steps, 2025-08-19-mtrantalainen-how-does-this-software-avoid-race-conditions-with, 2025-08-19-FallenZeraphine-the-reason-the-windows-search-is-slow-because-it, 2025-08-19-watbywbarif-i-am-using-everything-for-filename-search-and, 2025-08-19-alofbronco-whats-the-language, 2025-08-19-larsgregersen-it-looks-impressive-i-look-forward-to-testing-it, 2025-08-19-Alexwingg-https-sourceforge-net-projects-syncdrome-it, 2025-08-19-sgifan67-like-ultra-search-jam-software-does-can-you-do-it, 2025-08-19-ZacheryDew-show-us-the-resource-usage-if-you-could, 2025-08-19-frioglobal1-is-this-a-similar-technique-to-what-ultrasearch, 2025-08-19-any_other_you-want-ideally-merried-with-good-indexed-file-name, 2025-08-19-leidegre-baregrep-is-struggling, 2025-08-19-LubaRaphael-im-only-occasionally-onwindows-but-i-would-be, 2025-08-19-azeitona-how-treesize-make-its-search, 2025-08-19-DataJuggler007-i-just-built-an-app-called-diskjockeyservice-it, 2025-08-19-SanderSkjegstad-im-astonished-that-nobody-here-knows-the, 2025-08-19-leonard_coder-this-could-be-a-nice-tool-currently-when-i-want, 2025-08-19-IndubitablyTho-win-server-ntfs-network-nas-file-systems, 2025-08-19-avatarofkhaine-total-commander-has-good-search-would-be, 2025-08-19-FlorianCaesar-awesome-how-much-of-the-speedup-is-due-to, 2025-08-19-macsmol-does-it-search-regular-expressions-if-so-what-re, 2025-08-19-DefenceForceOrg-how-does-the-performance-compare-to-ultrasearch, 2025-08-19-SalathielGenese-impressive-kernel-or-user-space, 2025-08-19-ddxover-do-you-think-it-is-possible-to-replace-the-dll, 2025-08-19-BTChannon-maybe-a-dumb-question-but-how-does-it-compare-to, 2025-08-19-DotNetRussell-have-you-tried-using-grep-in-wsl-on-the-windows, 2025-08-19-AlwaysGameDev-does-it-handle-regex-as-well, 2025-08-19-devops_is_life-thats-nice-theres-no-win-install-that-i-spend, 2025-08-19-codaaaaaaaaa-how-well-does-vs-2022s-search-do-in-this-test, 2025-08-19-SBarizien-im-using-ultrasearch-for-name-based-searches-and, 2025-08-19-quentinoeoeoe-wait-how-do-you-read-raw-data-on-disk-like-this, 2025-08-20-dmcxblue-what-are-you-using-c-c-go, 2025-08-20-Toocanzs-as-someone-who-has-been-using-baregrep-yes-please, 2025-08-20-oisyn-the-api-is-terrible-even-enumerating-the-mft, 2025-08-21-rf-is-the-trick-here-using-the-mft-to-filter-to-the, 2025-09-08-djenura-in-a-big-git-repo-whats-the-difference-between
2/ @CharlieMQV
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