Recoll icon
Recoll icon

Recoll

 60 likes

This package is a personal full text search package which is based on a very strong backend (Xapian), for which it provides an easy to use and feature-rich interface.

Search results

License model

  • Free • Open Source

Application type

Country of Origin

  • FR flagFrance
  • European Union flagEU

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows  To download the Windows version, one shall perform a 5$ donation to receive the link.
  • Linux  Compiled and tested on FreeBSD, Linux, Darwin and Solaris
  • BSD
  • Flathub
  • Flatpak
Recoll screenshot 1
A result list with a preview window open
+6
The two tabs in the advanced search dialog
Recoll alternatives  
4.5 / 5 Avg rating (11)
60likes
11comments
43alternatives
0news articles

Features

Suggest and vote on features

Properties

  1.  Lightweight
  2.  Privacy focused

Features

  1.  File Search
  2.  Indexed search
  3.  File content indexing
  4.  Full-Text Search
  5.  File preview
  6.  Search-in-files
  7.  Dark Mode
  8.  Ad-free
  9.  No registration required
  10.  Command line interface
  11.  Works Offline
  12.  Portable
  13.  No Tracking
  14.  Semantic Search
  15.  Low memory usage

 Tags

  • desktop-search
  • unix
  • boolean-function
  • text-search
  • find-in-files

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Recoll information

  • Developed by

    FR flagJean-Francois Dockes

  • Licensing

    Open Source (GPL-2.0) and Free product.

  • Pricing

    One time purchase (perpetual license) that costs $5.

  • Rating

    Average rating of 4.5 (11 ratings)

  • Alternatives

    43 alternatives listed

  • Supported Languages

    • English
    • French
    • German
    • Italian
    • Spanish
    • Chinese
    • Turkish
    • Danish
    • Ukrainian
    • Greek
    • Hungarian
    • Dutch
    • Korean
    • Polish
    • Swedish

Our users have written 11 comments and reviews about Recoll, and it has gotten 60 likes

Recoll was added to AlternativeTo by Ravi on Mar 28, 2011 and this page was last updated Jan 31, 2025.

Comments and Reviews

   
 Post comment/review
Comment summary: Recoll is praised for its extensive file format support, fast and flexible search capabilities, and lightweight GUI. Users appreciate its ability to index large amounts of files quickly, especially compared to other search tools like DocFetcher. However, some criticism is noted for the Windows version not being free and consuming significant memory during large PDF file scans. Overall, it's considered superior for text-search tasks, particularly for Linux users.
Top Positive Comment
caiocco
★
★
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★
Apr 30, 2020
1

I use Recoll since the version based upon the version 3 of Qt toolkit. Recoll has a lightweight GUI and uses a very powerful engine (that may be memory hungry, but just when updating the database), being able to index a lot of formats. The database can grow up and reach some gigabytes in size, but the queries are fast.

Pros:

  • Lightweight and use to use GUI
  • Desktop environment agnostic (works great for me, as I still use FVWM with ROX-Filer)
  • Supports a lot of query types
    • In fact, Recoll has a query language and it is nicely documented
    • When filtering directories, the query language don't require the full path (i.e. Macrometrópole dir:/mnt/arquivos/caio/Cidades/Brasil/SP/RMSP/Emplasa/biblioteca and Macrometrópole dir:Emplasa/biblioteca are the same thing)
    • Filtering by MIME type is also easy (e.g. mime:application/pdf)
  • Shows snippets of documents in plain text

Cons:

  • The search engine may need a lot of memory (4 GB or 6 GB) when scanning large PDF files, like digitized maps
  • The default search results format is a bit dated
  • May have problems with old ISO 8859-1 HTML files, messing up the accentuated characters
  • Specifying search paths is a bit cumbersome

[Edited by caiocco, April 30]

[Edited by caiocco, April 30]

Top Negative Comment
johnhk
★
★
★
★
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Nov 19, 2018
9

Not free on window. Force donate to access download.

ph soft
Sep 19, 2020

The executable is not free. The source is available under an open source license. Someone else could compile it I guess and distribute it.

pstrg
★
★
★
★
★
Nov 30, 2023
0

Superior to every other text-search alternative. It's fast, flexible, allows for complex searches, has plenty of configuration options to fit every need or fancy. Author support is swift when one needs it. Windows version requires a modest, mostly symbolic fee.

vb078
★
★
★
★
★
May 14, 2023
0

I dont find were, but here it's said it's "Paid"... so, maybe one day, I will be stop on my flow

altmltky
★
★
★
★
★
Mar 28, 2023
0

Good idea, nice description in their site, open source, but doesn suit for me as an alternative for Everything

Hèlen Grives
★
★
★
★
★
Nov 12, 2022
0

Recoll is and was my first go to app for indexing pdf files on Ubuntu. It works so well; especially the preview and the ease of adding directories or maps. I also bought the Windows version. After so many uses and it usefulness; no problem. The database is best place in a directory that accommodates it growth when needed. It can also index media, usb and other disks.

dacomboman
★
★
★
★
★
Jan 28, 2022
0

Just purrfect for Linux users!

A bit of power usage on initial index, but that's okay.

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7 of 11 comments

What is Recoll?

This package is a personal full text search package which is based on a very strong backend (Xapian), for which it provides an easy to use and feature-rich interface.

A small fee is required for downloading and using the Windows binary version.

Recoll finds keywords inside documents as well as file names.

It can search most document formats. It can reach any storage place: files, archive members, email attachments, transparently handling decompression. One click will open the document inside a native editor or display an even quicker text preview.

Features:

  • Qt-based GUI
  • Will run on most Unix-based systems, Windows and Mac OS, available through repositories.
  • Does not ever connect outside: your data stays at home.
  • Powerful query facilities, with boolean searches, phrases, proximity, wildcards, filter on file types and directory tree.
  • Supports all common document types, including compressed files and archives:
    • Text, HTML, CHM help files.
    • Open/LibreOffice, MS-Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Apple Office documents, RTF, Abiword, WordPerfect, HWP Scribus.
    • Epub, Mobi, Fb2.
    • E-Mail (Mozilla, IceDove, etc.), Outlook PST files. Processes messages attachments.
    • PDF, Postscript.
    • SVG, audio and image file tags.
    • etc.
  • Multi-language and multi-character set with Unicode based internals.
  • Stemming performed at query time (can switch stemming language after indexing)
  • Easy installation.
  • Indexing can happen in real time or in batch, at scheduled times.

Recoll Videos

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