fsearch: Find Files and Search Their Contents on macOS

Overview

fsearch is a local search tool for macOS that helps developers and other heavy file users find files across a disk by name or by text inside their contents. It is designed for fast, repeated queries, including searches with approximate filenames and filters such as file type, location, or modification time.

The CLI can run alongside a small daemon, and Rust applications can use the project as a crate. Both can share the same index, making fsearch useful for personal terminal workflows as well as applications that need local file search.

Key Features

• Fuzzy filename search with typo tolerance for longer words, plus exact, prefix, suffix, and exclusion matching.
• Indexed content search with smart-case matching and regular-expression support.
• Query filters for extensions, file types, folders, size, modification time, paths, and symbols.
• A local index updated from filesystem events, with changes reflected in about 0.1 seconds according to the README.
• CLI, JSON-lines socket or stdio interfaces, and a Rust crate API.
• Shared index behavior so the first process owns the index and other processes follow it.

Use Cases

• Developers can locate source files by partial or mistyped names, then search for a function or text pattern across a codebase.
• People working across large local disks can find files by extension, folder, size, or modification date without browsing directories manually.
• Rust developers building local utilities can use the crate API instead of implementing a separate file index.
• Desktop app authors can connect to the local service through its JSON-lines interface and reuse the CLI's index.

Getting Started

Build and install the CLI with Rust:

cargo build --release && ./target/release/fsearch install

See the README for query syntax, Full Disk Access setup, and API examples.

Considerations

• The project is very new and changing quickly. The supplied health data reports recent commit activity, but no release in the past year; there is no published latest release to use as a stable version marker.
• Contributor activity is concentrated: four contributors are recorded, with most code attributed to one person. Recent issue and pull-request activity exists, but the small contributor base may affect maintenance continuity.
• Full Disk Access is needed to index protected locations. Granting access to the executable may need to be repeated after rebuilding it; without access, protected folders are skipped.
• The supplied requirements data identifies Rust and reports no CI or tests. Teams should evaluate their own build and validation needs before relying on it in production.
• The repository uses the MIT license. Review its terms for your distribution and attribution requirements.