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    Can Notepad++ Find Files by Name on My Hard Drive - Not Just Content of Files?

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    • Jerry Leventer
      Jerry Leventer last edited by

      SYSTEM
      Notepad++ v5.9.3
      Windows 7 Desktop

      BACKGROUND
      I’ve been using Notepad++ for several years, but never to its full potential. I only recently found the “Find in Files” search tool. However, because I am on a Windows 7 machine, I am always looking for a better search tool to find files on my hard drive.

      QUESTION
      So, I was wondering if Notepad++ has a feature that allows us to search on the hard drive for a file by name.

      After searching on Google and in this forum for keyword phrases such as “Can Notepad++ find files by name,” I have not found any reference to this question having been answered. So I thought I would open the topic.

      Thank you.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Jim Dailey
        Jim Dailey last edited by

        The plug-ins you will find here make it possible to open files in Notepad++ by name (or by path\name) that you have added to a “solution”. I have no idea what performance you could expect if you added an entire hard drive as a solution, however…

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Fisher Chen
          Fisher Chen last edited by

          I would try cygwin + find.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Tod Mar
            Tod Mar last edited by

            This would work if there was a regular expression that matched everything including LF once.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Tod Mar
              Tod Mar last edited by

              ^(.+)$
              and check the box for ‘. matches newline’ (and regular expressions)
              then each file shows 1 line in it.

              Scott Sumner 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Scott Sumner
                Scott Sumner @Tod Mar last edited by

                @Tod-Mar

                This works if you are really suffering for a way to do it and have no other. :-D

                Maybe a better regex search would be for (?s)^.*. This avoids the need to be concerned about the state of the “. matches newline” checkbox.

                Since the results that appear in the “Find result” panel are initially expanded, I found that right-clicking and performing a “Collapse All” followed by a left click of the “boxed plus sign” for the search gave the best view of only the matching filenames.

                Note that this method will NOT find files that have zero-length. Nor will it find files that have no extension, see https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/13196/find-in-files-search-only-files-with-no-extension

                Other alternatives, although not quite “within Notepad++” are discussed here:
                https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/13210/search-for-files-by-extension

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Ethan Piliavin
                  Ethan Piliavin last edited by

                  I would recommend you try the tool Everything by Voidtools.

                  Its not an NPP plugin but very configurable, extensive and can be setup to quickly find anything and open in NPP per your original request.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Tod Mar
                    Tod Mar last edited by

                    -Now- what I need is a filename pattern to exclude, like a RexExp on the filename (not the extension or the folder).

                    Claudia Frank 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Claudia Frank
                      Claudia Frank @Tod Mar last edited by

                      @Tod-Mar

                      as far as I remember it only supports include patterns.

                      Cheers
                      Claudia

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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