Everything3 PowerShell Wrapper

German Translation / Deutsche Übersetzung

A powerful and user-friendly PowerShell wrapper for the Everything Search Engine (Version 1.5+). This module utilizes the Everything3_x64.dll from the Everything SDK to enable extremely fast file searches directly from the PowerShell console.

Tested with:

• PowerShell 7.5.2 and 7.6
• Everything 1.5.0.1423b-x64 (previously 1.5.0.1396a)
  • Website: https://www.voidtools.com/everything-1.5a/
  • Changelog: https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=9787
• SDK Version 3.0.0.9 (included Everything3_x64.dll, signed by voidtools PTY LTD)
  • Website: https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15853
  • Download: https://www.voidtools.com/Everything-SDK-3.0.0.9.zip
  • Size: (503 KB - SHA256: 124685d35a5f49f3c1e9898853e166215748c893782c6a251f5dde58dacad4fa)
  • GitHub: https://github.com/voidtools/everything_sdk3

Table of Contents

• Everything3 PowerShell Wrapper
  • Table of Contents
  • Features
  • Requirements
  • Quick Start
  • Functions
  • Usage Examples
    • Simple Searches with Find-Files
    • Advanced Searches with Search-Everything
    • All Results and Existence Check
  • Practical Example: Archives Left Next to Their Extracted Folder
  • VSCode Considerations
  • Changelog
  • License & Disclaimer

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Features

• Fast Connection: Easy connection and disconnection from the Everything instance
• Powerful Search: Support for complex queries, regex, case sensitivity, and more
• Property Retrieval: Retrieve metadata such as size, creation date, and attributes
• Simple Handling: Convenient wrapper function Find-Files for everyday searches
• Connection Testing: Built-in function to test connection and display diagnostic information
• VSCode Compatibility: Automatic handling of VSCode-specific DLL loading issues

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Requirements

• PowerShell 7.0 or higher (the module uses PowerShell 7 syntax such as ??; Windows PowerShell 5.1 is not supported). PowerShell 7.5 or higher is recommended
• Everything v1.5a or newer must be installed and running
• The Everything3_x64.dll (from the official Everything SDK) must be located in the same directory as the module

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Quick Start

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/gitnol/PowerEverything3.git

2. Import the module into your PowerShell session:

   Import-Module .\Everything3-PowerShell-Wrapper.psd1 -Verbose

3. Test the connection:

   Test-EverythingConnection

4. Find files:

   Find-Files -Pattern "*.pdf" -MaxResults 10

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Functions

Function	Description
Find-Files	A simple wrapper function for quick file searches
Search-Everything	Performs detailed searches with all available options
Connect-Everything	Establishes a connection to the Everything client
Disconnect-Everything	Disconnects from the Everything client
Test-EverythingConnection	Verifies the connection to the Everything instance and displays status information

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Usage Examples

Simple Searches with Find-Files

Search for PDF and DOCX files:

Find-Files -Pattern "*" -Extensions @("pdf", "docx") -MaxResults 10

Search for files with properties (size, date):

Find-Files -Pattern "invoice*" -IncludeProperties -MaxResults 5

Regex search for image files with date pattern:

Find-Files -Pattern "regex:^\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}.*\.(jpg|png)$" -Verbose -MaxResults 10
# or
Find-Files -Pattern '^\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}.*\.(jpg|png)$' -Regex -Verbose -MaxResults 10

Advanced Searches with Search-Everything

Find the 5 largest files over 100 MB and sort by size:

# Manually establish connection
$client = Connect-Everything

# Execute search and sort by size in descending order
Search-Everything -Client $client -Query "size:>100mb" -MaxResults 5 -Properties "Size" -SortBy @{Property = "Size"; Descending = $true}

# Disconnect
Disconnect-Everything -Client $client

Find all files modified in the last 7 days:

$client = Connect-Everything
Search-Everything -Client $client -Query "dm:last7days" -MaxResults 10 -Properties "DateModified"
Disconnect-Everything -Client $client

Find empty files:

Find-Files -Pattern "size:0" -MaxResults 20

All Results and Existence Check

-MaxResults 0 returns all results. The Exists property is only filled when -CheckExists is set – a Test-Path per result is expensive (Everything results come from the index and are usually current anyway).

$client = Connect-Everything

# all ZIP files larger than 100 MB below a folder, with size and modification date
$zips = Search-Everything -Client $client -Query 'file: ext:zip size:>100mb "D:\Data\"' -MaxResults 0 -Properties Size, DateModified
$zips | Select-Object FullPath, @{ n = 'SizeMB'; e = { [math]::Round($_.Properties['Size'] / 1MB) } }

# paging: results 101-200, sorted by name
Search-Everything -Client $client -Query 'ext:pdf' -Offset 100 -MaxResults 100 -SortBy @{ Property = 'Name' }

# verify that each result still exists on disk (slower)
Search-Everything -Client $client -Query 'ext:iso' -MaxResults 50 -CheckExists | Where-Object { -not $_.Exists }

Disconnect-Everything -Client $client

Text properties (Name, Path, Extension, Type) are returned as full strings. Size is $null when Everything does not know it (e.g. folders).

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Practical Example: Archives Left Next to Their Extracted Folder

Examples/Find-ArchivesWithExtractedFolder.ps1 is a complete file-server clean-up script built on this module. It finds archives (zip, 7z, rar, iso, tar.gz, …) for which a folder with the same name already exists in the same location – i.e. archives that were extracted and then kept.

• Searches via the Everything index in seconds; falls back to a parallel file-system scan if Everything is not available or a path is not indexed
• -AllShares searches all data shares of the server (skips system shares, DFS roots and nested shares)
• Resolves the owners of the extracted folders via ADSI/LDAP (no ActiveDirectory module/RSAT needed)
• Writes a CSV and optionally sends one mail per owner; paths in mails are converted to \\server\share\...
• Owners that cannot be mailed (deleted/disabled accounts, no mail address, BUILTIN\Administrators) end up in one summary mail to the helpdesk
• Never deletes anything

cd .\Examples
Copy-Item .\Find-ArchivesWithExtractedFolder.config.example.ps1 .\Find-ArchivesWithExtractedFolder.config.ps1   # then adjust

# dry run on the whole server: CSV only
.\Find-ArchivesWithExtractedFolder.ps1 -AllShares -SearchMode Everything

# test: all mails go to $DebugTo, at most 3
.\Find-ArchivesWithExtractedFolder.ps1 -AllShares -SendMail -MaxMails 3

# production: mails to the owners
.\Find-ArchivesWithExtractedFolder.ps1 -AllShares -SearchMode Everything -SendMail -Live

Run it as administrator on the file server itself (needed for Get-Acl and Get-SmbShare). See the comment-based help (Get-Help .\Find-ArchivesWithExtractedFolder.ps1 -Full) for all parameters. Your real *.config.ps1, CSV and log files are excluded via .gitignore.

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VSCode Considerations

The module includes automatic workarounds for VSCode-specific issues when loading native DLLs:

• Automatic DLL Loading: The Everything3_x64.dll is explicitly loaded via Kernel32::LoadLibrary()
• PATH Handling: The module directory is automatically added to the PATH
• Error Handling: Robust handling of VSCode-specific parameter binding issues

These measures ensure that the module functions correctly in both the regular PowerShell console and VSCode.

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Changelog

SDK 3.0.0.9, fixes and archive example

• Updated Everything3_x64.dll to SDK 3.0.0.9 (more robust pipe connection when Everything is busy, crash and memory-corruption fixes in the SDK – see the SDK changelog)
• Fixed: P/Invoke signatures used uint for SIZE_T parameters/return values (index, count, buffer size) – now UIntPtr (64-bit on x64), as declared in Everything3.h
• Fixed: text properties (Name, Path, Extension, Type) only returned their first character (Everything3_GetResultPropertyTextW was declared without CharSet.Unicode)
• Fixed: the property Name and sorting by Name were silently ignored (property ID 0 was treated as "unknown")
• Fixed: $error (automatic variable) was overwritten in error handling
• New: -MaxResults 0 returns all results; -Offset for paging is passed correctly
• New: -CheckExists – Exists is only checked on request ($null otherwise). Behaviour change: previously Test-Path ran for every result
• Faster: results are collected in a list instead of += (5,000 results: 6.3 s → 0.5 s)
• Size is $null instead of 18446744073709551615 when unknown (e.g. folders)
• Loading the module no longer writes to the console (messages moved to -Verbose)
• New example: Examples/Find-ArchivesWithExtractedFolder.ps1
• Requirements corrected: PowerShell 7.0+

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License & Disclaimer

MIT

This project is provided without any warranty. Use at your own risk.

This project is not affiliated with VoidTools. All trademarks belong to their respective owners. This is a pure research and development project.