ffinder: find your files

Quickly and easily find your files. Organzie your files the way you want to. Click here to see what ffinder looks like.

Why?

I have five computers at home with a dozen+ hard-drives between them. Finding specific files can be a real pain, so I wrote ffinder.

ffinder lets you organize your files by type instead of by harddrive or folder. One view for all your music, one for all your Word docs, one for all your movies, etc., It is very flexible and easy: organize your files anyway you like. All regardless as to what folders and which hard-drives the files are actually in. Simply choose the type or types of files to include, and the folder or folders and give it a name.

Setup

Use Windows ability to mount network drives so they appear as local hard-drives (instructions below). Then configure ffinder as you see fit (more details below).

Settings

Use the Settings screen to add, edit and remove tabs. The current Settings screen is fairly limited but enough to do the job. Future versions will be more powerful.

Changes are saved to disk when you press the back arrow button. Restart ffinder for changes to take affect.

Each tab requires a name, a list of suffixes and a list of folders.
Suffixes
Define a list of file suffixes for each tab using a comma separated list, for example: pdf, doc, docx, txt
These are the files that are to be included in the list of files for the tab.
Folders
Define a list of folders where files are to be found for each tab. Use a comma separated list. For example: c:/my/files, d:/my/other/files, e:/etc

Use the Add Folders button to add folders. To delete folders manually remove them from the list of folders.

Download ffinder

To run ffinder (written in the Dart programming language) you will probably need Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. Look for "Permalink for latest supported" version on that page, download and install.

You can download ffinder here

How to mount a network drive on Windows

  1. Open the Start menu and search for "This PC".
  2. Right-click on "This PC" and select "Map network drive".
  3. In the "Map Network Drive" window, select a drive letter from the "Drive" dropdown menu that you want to use to access the network drive.
  4. In the "Folder" field, enter the path to the network drive you want to access. This path can be either the IP address of the computer hosting the network drive or the hostname of the computer, followed by the path to the shared folder on that computer.
  5. Check the "Reconnect at logon" box.
  6. Click "Finish" to mount the network drive.