I don’t know if the Google Desktop Search tool will be a really useful tool for newbies. For me it is wonderful. (and I would say that, even if I were not a Google stockholder)[ J] (Mick – March 2005)

If you know where everything is on your computer, you can stop reading now--but, on the other hand, if you, like me, can’t remember where you saw that little note describing that wonderful story about ..., well, let the computer "remember" it. In the past, I have thought, that with the plunging cost of hard-drive space, the true cost of information storage is not the media, but the “time-cost” of finding what you want among all the useless drivel you have saved--GDS has made a significant change in that equation. If you can remember anything about a document anywhere on your computer, GDS finds it before you can take a sip of coffee.

I downloaded Google Desktop Search (GDS), and installed it over the Beta version, which I had used for a couple of weeks. After installing, it sits there in your system status bar, and, slowly, while you are not using your computer, it builds an index to your computer. You can use GDS, from a small search window near the status-bar, where you type in words to search for. GDS then it uses the default web browser (IE, or Firefox) to display a Google-like list of files and emails that contain the words searched for. Click in the list to see one of the found items or its containing folder. If you click on an Email or an old Webpage, it is shown in the browser window, but many of the file-types launch their assigned application to view the document that has been found.

The GDS icon in the Windows System Tray can be used to start the application, or to use the properties to set-up preferences, much like the Google Web search preferences. A nice setting is the Google Integration checkbox. After you select “Google Integration”, anytime you do a normal Google Web Search you have a new message telling you how often the terms occur in the indexes of your computer (with link).

When I first heard of GDS, I thought, "big whoop, I have the Windows 'search/find' feature, what do I need Google rooting around in my computer for?" But the windows search just does brute force search every time (oh yes you can turn on indexing in the search, but it is pretty in-effective and irritating). Also, Windows search just looks in files--GDS looks in email also, and in recently viewed WebPages. By default, it indexes MS office files, text files, emails from Outlook and Outlook Express, PDF, previously visited WebPages, and probably others. It does not (by itself) make an index of RTF, BAT, CMD and Open Office files, but there are freely available "plug-ins" that allow indexing these documents. There are thousands of file-types, so rather than having GDS fundamentally able to index all file-types, Google has published the Developers Kit for GDS, and is supporting independent programmers to write for it. If you need something indexed, (say like a special genealogy file) someone is likely working on it.

The newly installed version took over the indexes created by the earlier version, so it was ready to use quickly, except I found a "plug-in" that allowed it to search more files, and I had to wait before it would find any RTF files. (total time before indexing was completed, several hours depending on number of files and speed of your computer) I have not noticed any performance slowdown in other apps, but it builds a rather large index. (400 MB+ in my case--but I had 59,000 files and emails to index--hey, I am a packrat, I cant help it). The index files take up space on your system drive, and if you want them moved to an alternate drive, it currently requires you to perform a Registry hack. (details available on request)

Because of the ability to search into old emails, I have changed the way I clean-up the Outlook folders–I just delete the obvious junk mail, and keep the rest in archive folders. As long as I don’t open them in Outlook, there is no performance degradation there, and, never have to open them because GDS finds what ever I need in there. As I say, it may not be for everyone, if you dont have much in the way of data on your computer, but as for me, I am sold.

Oh yeah! Where can you get GDS? Try http://desktop.google.com (and don’t forget the plugins)!