How to Enable Spotlight-Style Search Bar on Windows 10 – Guide
Microsoft is currently developing a new Spotlight-like launcher app for Windows 10. The new launcher is intended to replace the existing Win+R shortcut and include options for quickly navigating apps and files in Windows, as well as support for plugins like calculators, dictionaries and search engines. The software giant has been working on the launcher since January, and the first public beta is planned for May. An earlier version of the launcher supports basic search tasks that are normally performed by the Windows Start menu’s built-in search function. However, there are plans to make this a more powerful launcher similar to Alfred on macOS and more functional than Apple’s Spotlight search.
How to Enable Spotlight-style search bar in Windows 10
Highlight for Windows 10
Wox
Wox is the closest thing to Spotlight search in Windows 10. The UI is minimal and ideal for launching apps and browsing files. By default, the application launches when you press Atl+Space. A Spotlight-like launcher will appear for you to enter the search string and the results will appear as a drop-down list. The app is highly customizable, allowing you to change themes, remap hotkeys, install plugins, etc. By default Wox only gives you 5 search results and even that can be customized in Wox settings. Wox’s biggest highlight is the huge amount of plugin support.
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PowerToys Race
PowerToys Run is part of Microsoft’s experimental project called PowerToys. It consists of some additional tools like Image Resizer, ColorPicker, Keyboard Manager, etc. for Windows 10 power users and PowerToys Run is part of it. Now PowerToys Run is almost similar to Wox in terms of function and design as Wox is a major contributor to this project. After installing PowerToys, press Alt+Enter to launch PowerToys Run. Similar to Wox, you can search files, launch applications, and perform calculations. The only thing missing are plugins like Everything, Currency Converter etc.
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search all
Search Everything may not be the ideal replacement for Spotlight Search, but what the app offers cannot be ignored. The app is just made for browsing files on your local storage and it does a great job. The UI is quite traditional and will immediately remind you of Windows 7, but if you keep the UI simple it will be snappy. The application accepts search queries as well as regular expressions. You can also export the survey output to a text file. This is useful if you’re using it with a macro, and certainly useful if you’re in development.
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Key Pirinha
KeyPirinha has emerged to be a great application due to its simplicity and speed of response. It is a portable application and you have the source code available on the website. The app is pretty basic and you don’t get any plugins or themes. Compared to Wox, customizing KeyPirinha is a bit tricky as you have to make changes to the configuration files. It can be tricky if you’re not good at programming. the most unique feature of the app is the action step, which makes it more of an app emulator. Once the results of your search are displayed, you can press the Tab key and run the command for that specific application from the search bar itself. Specifying a different tab will open additional options for the application, which is similar to right-clicking. The KeyPirinha problem that bothers me the most is that you can’t select search results with your mouse. To make this possible, you must make numerous changes to the configuration file. In addition, the application recognizes almost all Windows shortcuts except the ones in the Control Panel.
released
Launchy is another open source launcher and has separate flavors for Windows, Mac and Linux. The app has a minimal layout but excels at personalization and web searches. Regarding customizations, in addition to the normal ones, you get additional options such as automatic app opening, response delay, etc. Launchy comes with a bunch of plugins installed, but unlike Wox, there isn’t a huge library of plugins. It also supports searching for files, but you must specify the search directories on the Catalog tab in Settings. Launchy seems to be accurate with the search, but this comes with a slight delay. It also searches the Internet, but the response is so slow that it’s not convenient at all.
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pro brain
Cerebro Pro’s perspective is similar to Spotlight search and even replicates the functionality. Search results are displayed below the search bar and the layout is exactly the same as for Spotlight Search. The highlight of the app is that it still shows up web results. This is an added bonus as you don’t have to open the browser window to type the search string.
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Final note
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