everythingx

README

EverythingX

Overview

EverythingX is a blazing fast file name search tool for macOS and Linux.

EverythingX attempts to replicate the very excellent Windows utility called Everything by Voidtools.

A background service captures real-time updates as files and directories change without scanning your disk. An app and a command-line tool do fast searches as you type.

How is EverythingX different from other search tools such as Spotlight, locate, and find?

• Minimal resource usage
• Quick file indexing
• Real-time updating
• Clean and simple user interface
• Instant search results as you type
• Quick startup
• Open source

Components

Binary	Purpose
everythingxd	Background daemon — subscribes to filesystem updates in real time
everythingx	GUI application — instant search as you type
ev	CLI tool — fast command-line search

Command Line Interface (CLI)

The EverythingX CLI, called ev, allows you to search for files and directories from the command-line. It is far faster than using find. Pipe the output to grep or other tools to filter results.

Usage

ev search_term [-b] [-u] [-x]

-b bold search term in the result. This option helps readability of the output but interferes with piping results to another command.
-u show only results in the current user's home directory ($HOME).
-x show only executable files (regular files, or symlinks to them, with any execute bit set). Each result is checked on disk, so this is slower for terms with many matches.

ev -ux build
/home/alan/bin/build.sh

ev bashrc
/private/etc/bashrc
/private/etc/bashrc_Apple_Terminal
/home/alan/.bashrc

EverythingX App

everythingx is a GUI application that provides an intuitive way to search and manage files on your system. Instant search results as you type to find full file paths and details.

Background Service

The everythingxd daemon subscribes to filesystem updates from the kernel. It will occasionally index of your files to ensure fast and accurate search results.

Features

• Automatic indexing: Keeps your file index up-to-date in real time.
• Low resource usage: Optimized to run efficiently in the background.
• macOS: Uses FSEvents for real-time filesystem monitoring.
• Linux: Uses fanotify (requires root and kernel 5.9+) for mount-level filesystem monitoring.

Installation

Quick install (recommended)

One command for both macOS and Linux — it detects your OS and CPU, downloads the matching native package from the latest release, and installs it (prompting for sudo):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AlanKK/everythingx/main/install.sh | sudo sh

Pin a specific version:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AlanKK/everythingx/main/install.sh | sudo EVERYTHINGX_VERSION=v0.2.2-beta sh

Supported platforms: macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and mainstream glibc Linux with systemd, on x86_64 and arm64 — Debian/Ubuntu and derivatives via .deb, Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE and derivatives via .rpm. Alpine/musl is not supported.

Manual download

Prefer to install by hand? Grab the package for your platform from the Releases page:

Platform	Package
macOS (Apple Silicon)	EverythingX_macos-apple-arm64.pkg
macOS (Intel)	EverythingX_macos-intel-amd64.pkg
Linux x86_64 (Debian/Ubuntu)	everythingx_linux_amd64.deb
Linux x86_64 (Fedora/RHEL)	everythingx_linux_amd64.rpm
Linux arm64 (Debian/Ubuntu)	everythingx_linux_arm64.deb
Linux arm64 (Fedora/RHEL)	everythingx_linux_arm64.rpm

macOS: double-click the .pkg file to install. Grant Full Disk Access to everythingxd in System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Full Disk Access for complete indexing.

Linux:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo dpkg -i everythingx_linux_*.deb

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf install ./everythingx_linux_*.rpm

The daemon requires root for fanotify (kernel 5.9+). The data directory /var/lib/everythingx/ is created automatically. The GUI needs libGL/X libraries at runtime; on a minimal/headless server the everythingxd daemon and ev CLI still work without them.

Running Locally (without installing)

make build

# Start the daemon
sudo bin/everythingxd

# Search from CLI
bin/ev -b filename

# Launch GUI
bin/everythingx

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Go 1.27.3+
• CGO toolchain (Xcode CLT on macOS; gcc on Linux)
• Linux GUI: sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dev xorg-dev libwayland-dev libxkbcommon-dev (the Wayland headers are needed even on X11-only or headless systems; the daemon and CLI build without any of these)
• macOS app bundle: go install fyne.io/fyne/v2/cmd/fyne@latest
• Linux packages: go install github.com/goreleaser/nfpm/v2/cmd/nfpm@latest

Build Commands

make build    # Build all binaries into bin/
make test     # Run unit tests
make app      # Package EverythingX.app (macOS only)
make deb      # Build .deb package (Linux only)
make rpm      # Build .rpm package (Linux only)
make clean    # Remove build artifacts

License

EverythingX is licensed under the Expat License (commonly known as the MIT License). See the LICENSE.txt file for more information.

Contact, feature requests, and bug reports

Create an issue on the Github Page