Find Any File is a macOS search utility that digs into locations Spotlight deliberately ignores — system folders, external drives, and network volumes — to locate files by name, date, size, or creator code with exhaustive precision.
What is Find Any File?
Find Any File (commonly abbreviated FAF) is a dedicated file-search application for macOS built by Thomas Tempelmann. Where Spotlight indexes only what Apple decides is worth indexing, Find Any File performs a raw, deep scan of any mounted volume — including locations Spotlight skips entirely, such as /System, hidden library folders, Time Machine backups, and external drives that have never been indexed. The result is a search tool that finds what Spotlight cannot.
What does Find Any File do best?
Its killer capability is searching everywhere, without preconditions. I've used it countless times to track down an errant configuration file buried three levels inside /Library/Application Support, or to find a stray .DS_Store littering a drive before archiving it. FAF scans in real time rather than querying a pre-built index, so it always reflects the current state of your disk.
The search criteria are surprisingly deep for such a focused tool. You can filter simultaneously by:
- Filename (exact, contains, starts/ends with, regular expression)
- Date created or modified (before, after, or within a range)
- File size and kind
- Invisible files and packages — both off by default in Finder
- Creator and type codes (a godsend when dealing with legacy Classic-era files)
Results appear in a compact list you can sort, preview with Quick Look, and open directly. Right-clicking a result gives you the standard Finder contextual menu — nothing proprietary to learn.
How much does Find Any File cost?
Find Any File is free to try: you can run searches and see results without paying anything. To actually open or act on those results, a one-time purchase is required. The price is modest — well below the cost of a single month of most subscription utilities — and there is no recurring fee. It is sold directly through the developer's site and via the Mac App Store; the direct version unlocks a few additional capabilities (such as searching volumes that require root access via a privileged helper) that the sandboxed App Store build cannot offer.
Who should use Find Any File?
Power users and developers will get the most out of it. If you regularly poke around in system directories, manage large external archives, audit drives before wiping them, or debug apps by hunting for preference and cache files, FAF earns its place in your dock permanently. It is also invaluable for photographers and video editors managing terabytes across multiple drives, where Spotlight indexing is patchy at best.
Casual users who only ever search their home folder for documents are probably well-served by Spotlight or the ⌘F sheet inside Finder — FAF would be overkill. But the moment a search comes back empty and you know the file exists somewhere, FAF is the first tool I reach for.
How does Find Any File compare to EasyFind and HoudahSpot?
The closest free alternative is EasyFind (also by Tempelmann, interestingly), which covers many of the same scenarios but lacks the saved-search and criteria-combination depth of FAF. HoudahSpot is the other serious competitor: it layers a polished UI on top of Spotlight's mdfind engine, which means blazing speed but still constrained to Spotlight's index. If your problem is a slow, cluttered Spotlight interface, HoudahSpot wins. If your problem is that Spotlight genuinely cannot see the volume or directory you care about, HoudahSpot hits the same wall — and that is where Find Any File has no peer.
Alfred and Raycast both surface file search as part of their launcher feature sets, but neither digs into unindexed volumes. They are excellent launchers that happen to search files; FAF is a dedicated file-search tool that happens to have a clean launcher-free UI.
What are the best Find Any File alternatives?
Ranked by how close they come to FAF's unindexed-volume coverage:
- EasyFind — free, same developer, slightly narrower criteria set
- HoudahSpot — Spotlight-backed, faster on indexed volumes, polished UI
- Tempi — lightweight recent-files focus, not a deep-scan tool
- Finder's built-in search — free, always there, but limited to indexed content and frustratingly slow on large external drives
