Search

Quick search. Press Ctrl+F and type a name: the files of the open folder are filtered, and matches from subfolders appear below as a separate group. In Details, a “Folder” column is added. Esc clears the search and returns the keyboard to the files.

The button to the left of the box turns searching subfolders on and off. It's on out of the box and keeps its state across folders and launches; when it's off, both name search and text search stay in the open folder.

Masks. Without * and ?, Wander looks for part of a name; with them, the whole name must match the pattern. Separate multiple masks with semicolons.

Text inside files goes after a colon: *.cs:budget finds .cs files with the word “budget”, and :budget finds any file with it. Everything after the first colon is searched as is, spaces and colons included (:http://example.com). A “Match” column appears in the results. The Preview pane opens a found file right at the match; F3 goes to the next match, and after the last one, to the next found file.

Filter by type. The file type goes after a slash: /img keeps only images, holiday /vid keeps videos with “holiday” in the name, and /doc:budget keeps documents with the word “budget” inside. You can write the mask and the type without a space too: 2024/img. As soon as you type /, a list of types drops down: pick one with the arrow keys, Enter or Tab completes the word, and Esc closes the list.

The start of the word is enough: /i, /do. With any type except /dir, folders drop out of the list, and a word that matches no type leaves nothing.

Filter by photo settings. In a folder of photos, the search box understands shooting data:

Several conditions add up: iso>1600 f<2 keeps photos shot at high ISO with a wide-open aperture. The name and the type work with them too: IMG_ iso>3200 /img.

• A camera icon next to the box shows that the filter is working: photos without shooting data and folders are hidden.
• If no photo in the folder knows how it was shot, these words are searched for in names like any other text. To search for such a word in names where the filter does work, put it in quotes: "50mm".
• Photo settings filter only the open folder; the search doesn't go into subfolders then.

The Search window (Ctrl+Shift+F or ⋮ in the search box) splits the same query into fields:

• name or mask;
• type: the same ones as after / in the box;
• text inside files; name and text are combined with and, so *.cs plus a word gives you four files, not four hundred;
• the folder to search in;
• “Search subfolders”: the same as the button next to the box;
• “Also search binary files”.

The search box above the files and the window are the same search: what you type in one shows up in the other.

Supported formats. Text in any encoding (UTF-8, UTF-16, Windows-1251, DOS-866), .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .epub and OpenDocument; .doc and .rtf are read with Windows' own tools, and .pdf if a PDF reader is installed. Images, archives and programs are skipped; with “Also search binary files” checked, they're searched for Latin letters and digits.

Results are sorted like regular files. Where a found file lives is shown as a path from the open folder: in the “Folder” column in Details, in the caption in Tiles, in the tooltip in Icons and Gallery, and at the bottom of the Preview pane. “Go to location” in a found file's menu opens its folder with the file selected. “Stop search” stops the search and keeps what was found, F5 repeats the search, and going to another folder clears it. There's no index: files are read on every search, and nothing is left on disk.