Lost and Found

Total Recoll

Article from Issue 180/2015
Author(s):

KDE's unofficial search engine may be the most usable choice of all.

Searches have been KDE's weak point for several years. Nepomuk [1], which was introduced in the fourth release series as a sophisticated search engine, proved difficult to configure and use. Last year, Nepomuk was replaced by the supposedly easier-to-use Baloo [2], but it has been greeted with no greater enthusiasm. Currently, the most usable alternative for drive searches is Recoll [3] (Figure 1), which combines both simplicity and – for those who want them – advanced configuration options that are explained in a comprehensive manual [4].

Like Baloo, Recoll is a Qt tool that uses the Xapian search engine library [5]. Recoll's main difference from its predecessors is that it does not install as a daemon by default, a practice that has gained both Nepomuk and Baloo a reputation for being a drain on system resources. Recoll is not a standard KDE package, but it is well enough known that major distributions carry it. If your distro does not include the Recoll packages in its repository, the manual includes detailed information about building from source.

Once Recoll is installed, it needs to index your files. In my experience, Recoll indexed about a terabyte of files in one hour (Figure 2), about the same as either Nepomuk or Baloo; however, unlike my experience with Nepomuk, the process did not noticeably slow operations running concurrently.

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