Mac's Spotlight search-like in Windows

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Mac's Spotlight search-like in Windows

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2 min read

I am a Mac OS user for years. I really love Mac and have a really good experience using it, especially as a developer. One feature that I love is the Spotlight Search. It allows you to easily search for a file, application, information from the web. You can even do a calculation with it. Rather than Command + tab to switch to another application, some people prefer to use Spotlight Search, which may be faster if you can type fast. The best part of it is that you can use Command + space keybinding to start using it. I think many Mac users love this feature, and probably miss it so much when they have to use another OS. As an alternative, some people use Alfred, which is also awesome.

In my job, I was forced to use Windows. Having experienced old version of Windows and years of experience using Mac, I was so hesitant at first. But after some time, I somehow managed to get used to Windows 10. Actually, it is not that bad, Windows 10 is much more modern compared to the old ones, and even though personally I think it is not as good as Mac, it provides a good user experience for a developer. But, one of the things that I certainly miss, is the Spotlight Seach. I hate it when I have to click the menu, search it and then click it (too many steps). I prefer to use the keyboard for almost everything when operating a computer. But finally, I found PowerToys: github link. It is a set of utilities for power users to tune their Windows experience for greater productivity. One of the utilities is the PowerToys Run. If you are looking for Spotlight Search-like for Windows, then you already have found it.

Like other OSes, Windows now have package managers for installing apps. As far as I know, there are three popular package managers for Windows: winget, Chocolatery, and Scoop. It is very easy to install PowerToys using these tools.

  • Installing using widget

    winget install Microsoft.PowerToys --source winget
    
  • Installing using Chocolatey

    choco install powertoys
    
  • Installing using Scoop

    scoop bucket add extras
    scoop install powertoys
    

Now you can enjoy the PowerToys. Other than PowerToys Run, it also offers, Always on Top, Color Picker, Image Resizer, PowerRename, and some other useful utilities. I can say, it is a very nice tool. For more information, you can check the details here.