Everything vs Listary: raw speed or smoother workflow?

Everything and Listary get recommended in the same breath so often that people assume they're rivals. After weeks running both on our 1.2-million-file test machine, our take is different: they're solving two different problems, and the "versus" framing sells both short. Everything is a search engine — a dedicated window where you out-query the file system. Listary is a workflow layer — search woven into whatever you're already doing, including the open/save dialogs every other tool ignores.

That said, if you're only installing one, the differences matter. Here's how they compare on speed, features, price and day-to-day feel.

Two tools, two different jobs

Everything (voidtools, free) builds an instant index of every filename on your NTFS drives by reading the file system's own records. You open its window, type, and results from the entire machine appear letter by letter. Around that core it stacks serious power-user features: a compact query syntax (ext:, size:, dm:, boolean operators), full regex, saved filters and bookmarks, export to CSV, an HTTP server, and an ETP server so you can query one PC's index from another. Our full Everything review digs into all of it.

Listary is find-as-you-type, everywhere. Press Ctrl twice and a launcher bar appears over whatever you're doing; start typing inside any Explorer window and Listary filters it live. Its party trick — the feature no other tool replicates — is jumping a file open/save dialog straight to the folder you already have open, or to any folder you type a few letters of. Add fuzzy matching (type pjrpt, get Project Report), per-result actions (copy path, open in terminal, move to a recent folder) and app launching, and it behaves more like a Windows-native Alfred than a search box. Details in our Listary review.

Side-by-side comparison

Where Everything wins: query power

When the question is hard, Everything answers it and Listary can't. "Every PSD over 200 MB modified this month, sorted by size, across three drives" is one line in Everything (ext:psd size:>200mb dm:thismonth) and then one click to export the list. Regex hunts, duplicate-name checks, querying a second PC's index over ETP, running it portable from a USB stick — this is the deep end, and Listary doesn't pretend to swim in it. In our testing both tools returned simple filename matches effectively instantly, so for easy lookups speed is a tie; complexity is where they separate. (Neither searches inside documents in any serious way — for that, see our Everything vs Windows Search comparison, where content indexing is the whole story.)

Where Listary wins: zero context-switching

Listary's value shows up in the hundred tiny moments Everything never sees. You hit Save in Photoshop and the dialog opens to the wrong folder — Listary jumps it to the right one in a keystroke, no clicking through a tree. You're in Explorer and just start typing a fragment of a name; matches filter live. Two taps of Ctrl launches apps, recent files and folders with fuzzy matching that forgives sloppy typing. None of these beats Everything at searching — they remove the need to stop and search at all. The free tier covers the launcher and basic search; Pro adds the deeper customization, actions and themes that make it stick.

Price

Everything is genuinely free — no tiers, no nags, donations optional — which is why it anchors our best free file search tools list. Listary's free version is usable indefinitely, but the features that justify installing it shine in Pro, a one-time license that has hovered around $20 (check listary.com for current pricing). For a tool you'll touch dozens of times a day, that's modest; it's still a real difference from zero.

The plot twist: most power users run both

Here's the part the "versus" framing misses. The tools coexist perfectly — Everything's tray service costs almost nothing, Listary is invisible until summoned — and Listary can use Everything's index as its search backend. Enable Everything integration in Listary's settings (with the Everything service running) and the launcher's results draw on the same complete, real-time MFT index instead of Listary's own. You get Everything's coverage inside Listary's workflow, and the full Everything window stays a hotkey away for heavy queries. On our test rig the combined RAM footprint stayed comfortably under 200 MB. If you only adopt one setup from this page, make it this one.

Choose Everything if… / Choose Listary if…

Choose Everything if: you want maximum query power for free; you regularly hunt files by size, date, extension or regex; you manage huge file collections across multiple drives; you need to search another machine's index over a network; or you want a portable tool that runs from a USB stick. It's the stronger pure search engine, full stop.

Choose Listary if: your pain is friction, not findability — wrong folders in save dialogs, repetitive navigation, alt-tabbing to search; you want app launching and file search in one hotkey; you prefer fuzzy matching to exact syntax; and a one-time ~$20 Pro license doesn't bother you. It changes how Windows feels in a way a search window never will.

Or run both: Everything as the engine, Listary as the interface. It's the setup we keep coming back to on our own machines, and it pairs well with the Explorer techniques in our Windows file search guide. To see how this duo stacks up against content-search specialists like Agent Ransack, start with the full software roundup.