folderscope/README.md

FolderScope

Fast, native file search for Linux with a Windows-style GUI.

FolderScope is a C++20 + Qt 6 desktop app for finding files across one or more folders without indexing or background services. It is designed for fast interactive searches, duplicate discovery, and detailed result inspection in a single window.

Highlights

• search across multiple root folders;
• filter by name patterns, size, timestamps, and file attributes;
• inspect duplicate files and files with matching names;
• optionally verify duplicate matches byte by byte in strict mode;
• search inside file contents, including text and hex;
• reuse a persistent, automatically invalidated cache for content matches and duplicate hashes;
• show folder summaries and duplicate groups;
• sort, resize, hide, and restore columns, including per-column header actions;
• export results to CSV, TSV/TXT, HTML, XML, and JSON;
• open files and folders, copy paths, and use context actions from the results table;
• run searches in parallel for responsive large-directory scans.

Building

Requirements:

• CMake
• a C++20 compiler
• Qt 6 with Widgets, Concurrent, and DBus

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j
./build/folderscope

Run the automated tests:

ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure

Install into the current system:

cmake --install build

Notes

FolderScope targets Linux only.

Some Windows-specific SearchMyFiles features do not map directly to Linux, including NTFS-only metadata and Windows shell integrations. The app uses the native Linux equivalents where available.