Every file, before you finish typing.
Sift reads the NTFS index directly instead of walking folders. Two million files, searched on every keystroke.
Search that keeps up with your disk.
An index that builds in seconds, stays current by itself, and can look inside your files.
Search inside your files
Put content: in front of a query and Sift searches what is written in your files, not just their names. It keeps a background index of the text under your profile, code, config, notes and documents, skipping caches, build output and anything that is not text. This is the part a filename index cannot do, and it stays instant because the work happens once, up front.
The index follows your disk
After the first scan Sift reads the NTFS change journal, so files you create, rename or delete appear and disappear in results within a second. No rescans, no watcher process, no polling your folders. If the journal ever breaks, the status line says so rather than quietly serving you stale results.
Every term must match
Space-separated terms are all required and order does not matter, so 2025 invoice pdf narrows exactly the way you expect it to, without any query syntax to learn.
Keyboard first
The box is focused the moment the window opens. Arrows move the selection, Enter opens the file, and right-click gives you reveal in Explorer or copy path. You never have to reach for the mouse.
Results scroll like ten
The list is virtualised and full paths are rebuilt on demand, so file sizes are only read for the rows actually on screen. Ten thousand matches scroll exactly as smoothly as ten do.
Why it is instant
Everything slow happens once, before you type. What is left is a lookup.
Do not walk the folders
Asking Windows to enumerate directories one at a time is what makes normal search slow. On a drive with two million files that is two million round trips, and it is why the built-in search feels like it gave up.
Read the master file table instead
NTFS already keeps a record for every file on the volume. Sift asks for that table in one pass and gets every name and parent link at once, about a million files in a couple of seconds. Reading it needs Administrator, which is the one thing Sift asks for.
Keep it in memory, matched in parallel
Names live in a flat array with a lowercase copy for matching, and the search runs across every core. Full paths are rebuilt only for the rows about to be drawn, so nothing is spent on results you never see.
Stay current from the journal
NTFS logs every change to the volume. Sift replays that log twice a second and patches the index in place, so a file you saved a moment ago is already findable without a rescan.
Three tools, one idea
Small native Windows utilities that measure something precisely and then act on it. Same build, same look, no installers.
Watches how responsive the active app is and throttles whatever is starving it of CPU.
marshal.aimbetween.games QuarryMaps the whole drive as a treemap and tells you what grew since the last scan.
quarry.aimbetween.games
Sift
Finds any file on your drives instantly, and searches inside them with content:.
You are hereGet Sift for Windows
One executable. Run it and it works. Uninstalling is deleting the file.
Sift needs Administrator to read the NTFS master file table directly, which is the whole reason it is instant. It offers to relaunch elevated once at startup. It is unsigned, so SmartScreen may warn on first launch: choose More info, then Run anyway.