Skip to content

How To Blog

  • Ten Best Plex Plugins You Must Try In 2020 How-To
  • What is Hyperthreading and Why Should You Care? Computer Tips
  • Run Older Programs in Compatibility Mode in Windows 11/10
  • How to Play MKV Files on Mac How-To
  • How to Avoid Anime Filler Episodes ? technology
  • How to see Deleted Reddit Posts Computer Tips
  • How To Uninstall Apps on Android That Won’t Uninstall Computer Tips
  • Best Password Tools To Increase Security & Keep Your Data Safe Tools Review

Search Inside Multiple Text Files at Once

Posted on October 8, 2020 By blog_786 No Comments on Search Inside Multiple Text Files at Once

Have you ever had to find some text in a bunch of different text files? If you work in IT, this problem can occur quite often. Perhaps you are looking for a specific phrase in the log files, or perhaps you are a programmer and need to find code that is found in many different code files.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do this on Windows. Windows Standard Search is terrible for this kind of task because it is very slow and does not allow advanced searches. Fortunately, there are several other ways that go far beyond Windows search, which I will cover in this post. I won’t go into details of each solution, but you can use Google to find out more.

If you don’t want to install any third-party software and are comfortable with the command line, you should check out the built-in search commands section below. I assume most people are more comfortable with GUIs, so I’ll mention programs first.

Third-party search programs

When it comes to searching multiple text files, grep is the king of all search commands. grep is a UNIX / Linux command line utility that allows you to perform advanced searches using regular expressions. It is very popular and is used in all Linux distributions.

Therefore, when someone writes a program to search Windows, the word grep is inevitably present. This is the case with all the programs listed below.

grepWin

grepWin

– /

Search Inside Multiple Text Files at Once

grepWin is probably the most popular of the tools mentioned here. It supports regular expressions and allows you to find and replace text. They also have a tutorial on their website to help with regular expressions, although you can use Google for many more.

You can limit your search by file size, file type, and other criteria. It also adds an option to the right-click context menu in File Explorer to quickly search a folder. The results are listed in the bottom window and you can simply double click on them to open the files.

AstroGrep

AstroGrep

Search Inside Multiple Text Files at Once

AstroGrep is another really good search engine. Not only is it updated quite often, but it also shows where the text was found in the file. grepWin also has this option if you select the Content radio button, but I think AstroGrep has it better.

AstroGrep can also search for Word files, which is a handy feature. You can also save or print all results for future reference. I also find their interface to be more modern and pleasing to the eye.

BareGrep

Bargrip

Search Inside Multiple Text Files at Once

BareGrep is a fairly simple search program that supports regular expressions and all basic search functions. This is generally quite fast and shows matches in tabular format. The free version has a splash screen that cannot be turned off. The pro version costs $ 25 and seems to just turn off the splash screen, otherwise the functions are the same.

PowerGREP

PowerGREP

If you’re looking for the perfect finder, look beyond PowerGREP This program has some serious features and a serious price tag. That’s a whopping $ 159! It has almost all the features mentioned above plus a few others, and they are all nicely packaged in a rather small interface.

I only recommend this program if you have serious search needs, including searching for text in Word files, PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, etc. It can even extract statistics from your log files and provide you with this information. It’s a pretty powerful tool.

Built-in Windows Commands

If you just want a quick search and don’t want to install a complete program, you can use the built-in command line tools in Windows. One runs on a regular command line and the other uses PowerShell. Both are powerful enough and can find just about anything you are looking for.

Search Inside Multiple Text Files at Once

The first command is findstr. You can read the reference document here to learn how to use findstr. You can also type findstr /? on the command line and it will show you the usage. As you can see, there are quite a few options. Obviously, this is much more complicated than using one of the programs above.

The second option is the Windows PowerShell Select-String command. Again, these commands are quite time consuming if you haven’t used them yet. Microsoft has a good tutorial on using Select-String, so be sure to read it.

Search Inside Multiple Text Files at Once

Thus, these are essentially the best ways to search for text in a large number of files. I suggest you try different options and see which one suits you best. Enjoy!

–

How-To

Post navigation

Previous Post: How to Configure a HomeGroup in Windows
Next Post: How to Delete Blank Lines in Excel

Related Posts

  • Block File Downloads in Internet Explorer How-To
  • Camera Not Working on Skype Windows 10? Here’s How to Fix It How-To
  • How to Download YouTube Videos to iPhone How-To
  • Pandemic Movies on Netflix You Can Watch Right Now! How-To
  • How To Make a Custom Zoom Background How-To
  • Save a List of Running Processes to a Text File in Windows How-To

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Archives

  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • November 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • March 2021
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • December 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018

Categories

  • Amazon Web Services
  • Apple Watch
  • Computer Tips
  • Cool Websites
  • Featured Posts
  • Free Software Downloads
  • Gadgets
  • Gaming
  • General Software
  • Google Software/Tips
  • Hardware
  • Help Desk
  • How-To
  • iOS
  • iPad
  • iPhone
  • Linux
  • Linux Tips
  • macOS
  • MS Office Tips
  • Networking
  • Office Tips
  • OS X
  • Product Reviews
  • Reviews
  • Safari
  • Smart Home
  • Smartphones
  • Software Reviews
  • technology
  • text
  • Tools Review
  • Troubleshooting
  • Tutorials
  • Uncategorized
  • Urdu Books PDF
  • Web Site Tips
  • Windows
  • Windows 10
  • Windows 7
  • Wordpress

Recent Posts

  • Unnecessary Windows 10 services that can be safely disabled
  • What Is Taskeng.exe and Is It Safe?
  • What is Facebook Watch and how do I use it in 2020?
  • How to add Google Forms to your site
  • What is a custom domain and how to set it up

Recent Comments

  1. How to Minimize a Windows Program to the System Tray 2023 - How To Blog on How to Fix System Tray or Icons Missing in Windows 10
  2. How can I unlock my Macbook using Apple Watch - How To Blog on How to Install Chrome OS on Macbook or iMac
  3. 4k hdmi switch with optical out - How To Blog on Is A Gaming PC Really More Expensive Than A Console?
  4. online video maker with music and pictures 2023 - How To Blog on 6 Video Editing Tips For Beginners
  5. 5 New Ways to Clean Electronics Safely - How To Blog on How to Clean Your Computer Properly, Inside and Out
  • 7 Ways To Deal With Social Media Withdrawal technology
  • How To Set Up Full Disk Encryption On Windows With Bitlocker Windows 10
  • How to Fix Bootloop on Android Smartphone How-To
  • Windows 7 RAM Requirements – How Much Memory Do I Need? Computer Tips
  • 3 Ways To Come Up With the Most Secure Password
  • How to Extract apk From Google Play (Video) How-To
  • Fix Black Screen on Windows 10 Laptop with Intel HD Graphics Windows 10
  • Rename A Printer in Windows 10 2020 Windows 10

Copyright © 2023 How To Blog.

Powered by PressBook News WordPress theme

Go to mobile version