Best Free Software

Mobilefilesearch

www.snipca.com/33452 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10

With most phones having at least 16GB of storage, it’s not hard to cram them with endless files. Apps such as Google Photos let you quickly hunt down specific photos, but locating other files – such as PDFS – isn’t so easy.

Mobilefilesearch from Nirsoft (scroll to the bottom of the link above for the download options) helps by letting you run detailed searches on all the files on your phone. It’s a portable program, so requires no installation – just run the EXE file.

The program is split into two windows: the Search Options window, which lets you define and run your searches, and another that displays your results.

Before running the program, use the USB cable that came with your phone to attach it to your computer

(we found that if you connect it after launching the program, it won’t be detected). You should also make sure you’ve signed into your phone.

To search for specific types of file, enter the file extension in the Wildcards box within the Search Options window. Typing *.pdf, for example, will find all the PDFS on your phone. To find all JPG files with ‘2019’ at the start of their name, type 2019*.jpg, or for files with ‘2019’ anywhere in their name, type *2019*.

Further down the Search Options window, you’ll find settings to refine your search by file size, as well as by the date the files were created or edited.

Since Mobilefilesearch doesn’t create an index of your files, the results aren’t instant. We’d like to see an option to create an index in a future release, but you don’t have to wait too long – a full search of our 64GB phone (containing 13,914 files) took four minutes 57 seconds.

4 1 Use the Wildcards box in the Search Options window to find file types or those with specific text in their names. 3 2 To search based on the size of files, set the minimum or maximum size (or both). You can also narrow your searches to files that were created or modified on a specific date. 1 3 To copy any of the files to your PC, right-click them, select ‘Copy Selected Files To…’, then choose where to save them. 2 4 All column headings are displayed by default. To hide those you’ve no interest in, click the View menu, then select Choose Columns.