Wox
198 likes
Wox is a full-featured plugin-powered launcher that supports file and web searching.
Cost / License
- Free
- Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Windows
- Mac
- Linux
- Homebrew
Features
- Application Launchers
- File Search
- Integrated Search
Wox News & Activities
Highlights All activities
Recent News
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What is Wox?
Wox is a full-featured plugin-powered launcher that supports file and web searching.
Since the local search is powered by 
Everything you will start receiving results as you type.
Wox information
Developed by
qianlifeng Licensing
Open Source (GPL-3.0) and Free product.Written in
Rating
Average rating of 3.2Alternatives
57 alternatives listedSupported Languages
- English
AlternativeTo Categories
File Management, Office & Productivity, Online Services, OS & UtilitiesGitHub repository
- 26,401 Stars
- 2,417 Forks
- 128 Open Issues
- Updated
Comments and Reviews
Sure, it finds everything super fast and is very extensible, but keep in mind that the Wox app consumes 70-80 MB of memory and requires the Everything app to also be running, which consumes another 70-80 MB. If you are limited on resources, then there are other command-line launchers out there that consume a lot less memory.
I'm surprised, but apparently you are right about it relying on the Everything app
I downloaded like ten launchers and tested 'em all out, and I ended up surprised by Wox's popularity on alternativeto.net. The app would repeatedly crash and throw errors when trying to use any plugin. Gave it a miss in favour of more stable apps.
Which ones? "The more Stable Apps"? I have been using Launchy and looking at Wox now. What options you using?
to deepbind.. when the chips are down, there's also the old Win F3 hotkey method... I don't like it any better than you, but..
I'm not sure that there's any benefit to using this over using the Win F3 hotkey.. at least with Win F3, you don't have to type out things like doc, to look up documents, or wonder if you got other abbreviations right, because there's tabs with Windows that spell things out. I'm thinking it might have value as a cross-browser bookmark finder (with a plug-in), but I'd sooner go with StorUrl.
Wox is almost abandon ware. It works pretty well, but there are a few irritating bugs that have gone un-addressed for a long time. There are no recent releases and very little activity on the github project.
Sadly no longer activly maintain.
Update June 2025
Does someone know if it's possible to have Wox show search results based on recency? I.e. most frequently/recently chosen results shows up first. I'd like Wox to LEARN from the choices I pick from its results list (like how Launchbar for macOS does it). Right now, it's pretty unintelligent in that regard.
I'd also like to be able to use abbreviations for common items (again, like Launchbar on Mac). I presume this isn't possible in Wox, correct?
[Edited by hced, October 30]
It's a suitable Alfred replacement that works around Windows' terrible search functionality.
Great Comment! — Yes! – Windows’ Native Search is Astoundingly BAD {to phrase it Mildly} to be released by an OS-Creator! IF M$ had ANY sense, they should be SOOO embarrassed that a KEY aspect of their OS is GARBAGE!! The ONE reason that I allow Windows to Continue to Index my files is because I like OneNote ... & OneNote is Dependent on Windows’ Search-Indexing.
It works more or less, but overall this software is a menace. I've had a better experience with Keypirinha and Agui – the first is a powerhouse, and the latter is ultra stable.