Linux
Your systemPortable AppImage. No package manager required.
AppImage may need chmod +x.Install via terminal
curl -fsSL https://searchmonkey.dev/install.sh | bashNo index. No daemon. No stale results.
Real-time search for real files.
Searchmonkey III is a modern desktop search tool for people who want to search what is actually on disk, right now.
Watch Searchmonkey III
A quick walkthrough of real-time file search in action.
Downloads
Version 0.3.1
Fast, real-time file search. No indexing.
Having trouble? View all release files on GitHub → View source on GitHub →
Open source · MIT · Built with Tauri + ripgrep
Windows
Windows installer.
Installer may show SmartScreen on first releases.Install via terminal
winget install searchmonkeymacOS
Download for macOS.
Universal (Intel + Apple Silicon). If blocked, right-click → Open.Install via terminal
brew install --cask cottrela/searchmonkey/searchmonkeyChecksums are available on GitHub releases.
Extend Searchmonkey with plugins
Search more than plain text.
Add support for PDFs, Office documents, OCR, and other formats through optional local plugins. Install only what you need and keep the core application lightweight.
Extract text and searchable content from supported PDF files.
Add support for common document formats, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.
Extract text from image-based files and scanned documents using local OCR processing.
↯
Live results
Results stream as files are searched. Stop waiting for an indexer to catch up.
.*
Regex power
Use literal search or regular expressions with a focused, modern UI.
✓
Honest file handling
See what was searched, skipped, filtered, or blocked by permissions.