VERSUS MODE · ROUND 4
EasyFind skips the Spotlight index and reads the disk itself, with operators precise enough for any pattern you can write. Shlexball skips the pattern: you describe the document and the model writes the search.
24 September 2026 · 5 minute read
EasyFind, free from DEVONtechnologies, is for people who know exactly what text they are looking for and want every file that contains it, including ones Spotlight never indexed. Shlexball is for people who know what a document was about but not its wording. EasyFind gives you a precise tool. Shlexball gives you a tool that understands the request.
EasyFind does not use the Spotlight index. It reads folders directly, so it finds files Spotlight has skipped or never indexed. You can search names, contents, tags or comments, and write the query with Boolean operators, wildcards, exact phrases or regular expressions.
That solves Spotlight’s coverage problem, not its understanding problem. q4 AND priorit* still matches the 4 MB export and the content index from round 1, because those files do contain the letters. And it still misses the note that says “what to tackle first this quarter”, because no pattern you write in advance covers every way a person might phrase an idea.
Like EasyFind, Shlexball does not rely on the Spotlight index to read contents. It searches the folder you choose with fast read-only tools and its own document reader for PDFs, Word, PowerPoint, Excel and CSV files. The difference is who writes the query. In EasyFind you do. In Shlexball a language model running on your Mac turns your sentence into the search, adds words with the same meaning, and ranks what comes back by fit.
Search details shows the exact read-only command Shlexball ran, so you keep EasyFind’s transparency without writing the pattern yourself.
Shlexball’s model is downloaded once and runs on your Mac’s Apple silicon. Your documents are read on your Mac and stay there, searches work offline after setup, and Shlexball only reads: it never changes, moves or deletes a file.
| EasyFind | Shlexball | |
|---|---|---|
| How it matches | Your pattern: Boolean, wildcards, phrases, regex | Meaning, via a local language model |
| Needs an index | No: reads the disk | No: reads the folder |
| Related words | Only the ones you type | Yes: shows what else it looked for |
| Dates and file types in plain English | No: set options by hand | From how you phrase the request |
| Ranks by | Name, date or size | How well the file fits the request |
| Previews the matching passage | File preview | Yes, on every card |
| Where it looks | Any folder or disk, including hidden files | One folder you choose |
| Needs | OS X 10.11 or later | macOS 15, Apple silicon, 16 GB memory |
| Price | Free | 30 free searches, then $9 a month or $59 a year |
EasyFind is free, runs on old Macs, searches whole disks and invisible files, and does exactly what your pattern says, nothing more. For a code string, an error message or a serial number, a regular expression is the right tool. Shlexball is the right tool when you cannot write the pattern because you do not remember the words.
Pick a document you can describe but cannot name. Look for it with EasyFind, then ask Shlexball. The first 30 searches are free and need no account.
▶ DOWNLOAD SHLEXBALLmacOS 15 or later. Apple silicon. 16 GB memory.