Getting Started

Installing

Grab the latest release from the download button on the homepage — two flavors are published for every release:

• Installer (SwiftList-Setup.exe) — recommended. It registers the background indexing service and can start SwiftList with Windows.
• Portable (SwiftList-Portable.zip) — unzip and run, no installation. You can still install the background service later from Settings → Service Status. If your machine doesn't already have the .NET Desktop Runtime SwiftList needs, run the included install-dotnet-runtime.bat once — the Installer handles this step automatically, but the portable build can't. When you're done with a portable install, there's no uninstaller to clean up after you: double-click the included portable-cleanup-registry.reg (confirm the prompt) before deleting the folder to remove the two per-user registry entries SwiftList creates on its own — the swiftlist:// URI protocol registration and its "start with Windows" entry. Both are per-user (HKCU) only, so no administrator prompt is needed.

Each of those is published for x64 and for ARM64. The names above are the x64 builds, which run on any recent PC — including Windows on ARM, where they run emulated. On an ARM machine prefer SwiftList-Setup_arm64.exe or SwiftList-Portable_arm64.zip, which are native. Automatic updates stay on the architecture you installed, so moving between them means downloading the other build yourself.

On first run, SwiftList installs and starts a Windows service (SwiftList.Service) that owns file indexing. This split exists on purpose — see Architecture if you're curious why — but as a user, the only thing you need to know is: Settings → Service Status tells you whether the service is installed and running, and lets you install it if it isn't.

The three windows

SwiftList doesn't have just one search window — it adapts to how you're using it:

• Main window — the full window you get from the taskbar/Start Menu shortcut, with the largest result list and an in-window Actions panel.
• Quick window — the compact, always-on-top popup you summon with the global toggle hotkey (double-tap Ctrl by default). Built for "hit hotkey → type → Enter" muscle memory.
• Inline window — embeds a SwiftList search bar directly into a supported native file dialog or File Explorer window, so you can search without leaving the dialog you're already in.

All three share the same search engine, hotkey system, and Actions menu — the difference is purely where and how they appear.

Basic search

Clearing the search box (or opening the quick window fresh) shows the Startup Panel instead of an empty result list — a tab strip with quick access to recent files, favorites, and history, no query needed.

Just start typing. Results update as you type, ranked by relevance (see Search Syntax for how matching and ranking work). Use the configurable next/previous-item hotkeys (arrow keys by default) to move the selection, and Enter to open the highlighted result.

Next up: Search Syntax to get the most out of the query box.