Alternatives to Agent Ransack

Searches file contents on Windows with regular expressions and boolean queries. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.

Replacements

Listings that take over the same core job as Agent Ransack.

  • FileLocator Pro

    Indexed content search for Windows with scripting and Office format support.

    PaidProprietaryWindows

    FileLocator Pro is the paid per-user version that adds an optional index, Office, PDF and archive content extraction, and scripting on Windows.

  • dnGrep

    Search file contents, documents and archives on Windows.

    FreeOpen sourceWindows

    dnGrep is free and open source under GPL-3.0 and searches plain text, supported document formats and archives, and remains Windows only.

  • AnyTXT Searcher

    Local full-text search across documents, PDFs, code and ebooks on Windows.

    FreeProprietaryWindows

    AnyTXT Searcher builds a local full-text index across documents, PDFs, code and ebooks with instant previews, though the first index on a large drive is slow.

  • DocFetcher

    Desktop search that indexes the text inside documents, not just file names.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    DocFetcher is an open-source Java indexer for Windows, macOS and Linux that searches inside documents and archives, with a portable mode and a dated interface.

  • Recoll

    Full-text desktop search across documents and mail, built on Xapian.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    Recoll is a Xapian-based open-source indexer for Windows, macOS and Linux with mail folder support and a query language, relying on external helper programs for formats.

Similar software

Related functionality, not a direct replacement.