Windows · Local · Open source

Find Windows files by what is inside them.

Dowse is a native local full-text search app for Windows. Search file names, PDF and Office document contents, source code, and text inside screenshots from one keyboard-first overlay.

Download for Windows View source

Local file content search, not just file names

Dowse extracts and indexes text from plain-text files, Markdown, source code, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX. On Windows it also uses the built-in Windows.Media.Ocr engine to make text inside PNG, JPG, WebP, and BMP images searchable. Everything happens on your computer: there is no cloud parser and no telemetry.

The search engine uses tantivy for a persistent inverted index and BM25 ranking. Chinese text is tokenized with jieba instead of being treated as arbitrary trigrams, and older GBK-encoded text files are detected before indexing.

Summon it with a hotkey

Press Alt+` to open the acrylic search overlay, type a phrase, use the arrow keys to select a result, and press Enter to open it. Results include highlighted snippets and a live preview pane. Filters cover document, code, and image groups; results can be sorted by relevance, modification time, or size.

Dowse Windows file content search overlay showing ranked results and a document preview

How Dowse differs from other Windows search tools

ToolPrimary approachBest fit
DowsePersistent file-name and content index, plus image OCRFrequent searches across documents, code, Chinese text, and screenshots
EverythingExceptional file-name index; content queries scan files on demandInstant file-name lookup and occasional scoped content searches
Windows SearchBuilt-in index using configured locations and content filtersNo third-party install and standard Windows document locations
dnGrepOn-demand text and regular-expression scanningFocused directory searches, regex, and search-and-replace

Read-only local search for AI agents

dowse mcp exposes three read-only Model Context Protocol tools: ranked full-text search, a longer preview around a hit, and index status. Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients can search the folders you indexed without granting a remote service access to your drive.

claude mcp add dowse -- dowse mcp

Install Dowse

  1. Download the latest Windows installer from GitHub Releases.
  2. Choose the folders you want Dowse to index. Administrator rights are optional; they only unlock the NTFS MFT/USN fast path when available.
  3. Press Alt+` and search for a phrase from inside a document or screenshot.

CLI users with Rust 1.85 or newer can install the same search engine with cargo install dowse.

Get the latest release Rust API documentation

Frequently asked questions

Does Dowse upload my files or search queries?

No. Parsing, indexing, OCR, and queries run locally, and the application contains no telemetry. The local index should still be protected like the source files because it contains extracted text.

Can Dowse search scanned PDF files?

Dowse extracts the existing text layer from PDF files. Its current OCR pipeline indexes image files; it does not yet turn the pages of an image-only scanned PDF into searchable text.

Does Dowse require administrator privileges?

No. Normal indexing and search work as a regular user. Administrator access is an optional condition for the faster NTFS MFT and USN Journal path.

Is Dowse open source?

Yes. The desktop app, CLI, search library, and MCP server are available under MIT or Apache-2.0 licenses.