Close Search
Tutorials – Recoll
Even in the age of cloud computing, personal computers often hold thousands of files: text files, spreadsheets, word processing docs, configuration files, and HTML files, as well as email and other message formats. If it takes too long to find the file you need, chase it down with the Recoll local search engine.
Recoll [1] is free software for Linux and Windows systems that adds a local search engine to your desktop or local network. And if you think that desktop search engines don't make sense in this age of cloud computing, I beg to disagree!
Look inside any school, NGO, small/medium enterprise, or individual computer used for more than a few years: Almost always, you will find big archives of mostly textual content that will never be uploaded in the cloud or otherwise exposed to an online search engine. Sometimes the reason is mere lack of time, bandwidth, or money. Sometimes it is privacy. Sometimes the reason is easier compliance with regulations like the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) [2]. In all cases, deploying local search capability could make thousands and thousands of files much more useful for their owners.
Recoll is an excellent answer to the need for a local search engine. The Recoll search tool offers flexible interfaces, good documentation, and easy installation. Thanks to a relatively simple search language, Recoll can analyze and index text inside all the most common document formats, even when those documents are "hidden" inside other files (for example, an OpenDocument file zipped and attached to an email message). In most cases, you can preview or open the files found with your search by just clicking on them inside the Recoll window.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.