# EverythingPowerToys: Everything search inside PowerToys Run > EverythingPowerToys is a C# plugin that puts voidtools Everything file search into the PowerToys Run launcher on Windows. It is a thin bridge between two programs you install separately, and its documentation lives mostly in the wiki rather than the README. **lin-ycv/EverythingPowerToys** — Everything search plugin for PowerToys Run - Repository: https://github.com/lin-ycv/EverythingPowerToys - Stars: 3,370 · Forks: 70 - Language: C# - License: EPL-2.0 - Published: 2026-09-23 · Updated: 2026-09-23 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/lin-ycv-everythingpowertoys ## The gap between PowerToys Run and Everything PowerToys Run is a launcher. You press a shortcut, type, and get program results, and Windows search is not the same thing as an indexed filename search. voidtools Everything is the opposite: a fast index of filenames on NTFS volumes, but a separate window with its own UI. EverythingPowerToys, abbreviated EPT in its own README, joins them so that typing in PowerToys Run can return file and folder hits from the Everything index. The audience is narrow and specific: Windows users who already have both programs installed and who treat the launcher as the place where work starts. It is not a search engine, not a replacement for Everything, and not useful on macOS or Linux. ## How the plugin talks to Everything The repository layout shows the shape of the thing. There is no indexer here. The top level contains Everything.cs, Main.cs, Settings.cs, plus Interop/, SearchHelper/, ContextMenu/ and Update/ directories, and two native binaries: Everything2_x64.dll and Everything2_ARM64.dll. Those DLLs are the Everything SDK, shipped per architecture, which tells you the plugin queries an already running Everything instance rather than walking the filesystem itself. plugin.json is the PowerToys Run manifest, and settings.toml holds the plugin's configuration. The practical consequence is a hard dependency: if Everything is not installed and running, the plugin has nothing to query. That is also why the plugin stays small. All the indexing, the service, the volume handling and the index maintenance belong to Everything, and EPT only formats queries and renders results inside the launcher. ## Installing EverythingPowerToys and running a first search The README lists five install methods and says detailed instructions are on the wiki page: Chocolatey, Scoop, WinGet, a self-extraction installer (EXE), and manual installation from a ZIP. The package names visible in the README badges differ per channel. Chocolatey uses everythingpowertoys, Scoop uses everything-powertoys from the extras bucket, and WinGet uses lin-ycv.EverythingPowerToys. ```bash choco install everythingpowertoys ``` That installs through Chocolatey. The equivalent one-liners for the other two package managers use the names above, and the README points to the wiki for the EXE and ZIP routes. ```bash scoop bucket add extras scoop install extras/everything-powertoys ``` Whichever route you take, the plugin lands in a PowerToys Run plugin location and PowerToys has to be restarted before it appears. The README does not document that path or the restart step; the wiki is where the project says to look. Once loaded, the plugin adds an activation keyword so the launcher knows to route your query to Everything instead of its own program index. The features page on the wiki covers the keyword and the available settings, and the README does not repeat them. ## What breaks, and when this is the wrong tool The failure mode is stated in the README's own framing: this is a plugin for PowerToys Run that searches using Everything. Two programs have to be present and one of them has to be running. If Everything is closed, or if its service is not indexing the volume you care about, the plugin has nothing to show, and the symptom looks like a broken launcher rather than a missing dependency. The related searches around this project include the phrase "Powertoys everything is not running", which is exactly that confusion showing up in public. There is a second, quieter limitation in the repository itself: the shipped Everything SDK binaries cover x64 and ARM64 only. If you are on a 32-bit Windows install, the layout gives you no native library to load. And if your files live on a network share or a non-NTFS volume that Everything cannot index by filename, adding a launcher front end changes nothing about what is searchable. ## Compared with PowerToys Run's built-in search PowerToys Run already ships with its own search and with a Windows Search integration, so the honest comparison is between two indexing back ends rather than between two launchers. Windows Search indexes content and metadata through the Windows indexer, which is why it can find text inside documents, and it is also why it can be slow to notice new files and why it can miss paths you consider obvious. Everything indexes filenames and paths by reading the NTFS master file table, which is why it returns results for files created seconds ago. EverythingPowerToys chooses the second model. You get filename and path matching with no content search, and you give up anything that depends on the Windows indexer. If your habit is searching inside documents from the launcher, this plugin does not do that. ## Maintenance, licence and upgrade cost The repository is not archived and the last push was on 2026-09-14. The most recent release listed is v0.91.1, tagged "v0.91.1 - Final" and dated 2025-05-20, with v0.89.0 from 2025-03-17 and 0.88.0.2 from 2025-02-03 before that. The word Final in the release name is worth reading literally: the release line has been quiet since May 2025 even though the repository has seen commits since. Upgrades are the usual Windows plugin problem, since the plugin has to match the PowerToys Run plugin API of your installed PowerToys version, and the README does not document a compatibility matrix or a rollback path. The licence is EPL-2.0, a file-level copyleft licence, which matters if you plan to modify and redistribute the plugin; the repository also bundles voidtools' Everything SDK DLLs, which carry their own terms. That is a question for your own legal review, not something the README answers. ## Conclusion Adopt EverythingPowerToys if you already run both PowerToys Run and voidtools Everything on Windows and want file results without leaving the launcher. Skip it if you do not use Everything, or if you expect the plugin to index your disk itself: it does not, and the README sends you to the wiki for install and feature details. Before installing, check that the Everything binaries shipped in the repository match your architecture, and confirm which PowerToys Run plugin folder your version expects, because the README does not document that path. ## FAQ ### Is PowerToys a must have? The README treats PowerToys as the host program rather than an optional extra: EverythingPowerToys is a plugin for PowerToys Run, and the file search it adds only exists inside that launcher. Whether the launcher is worth installing is a separate decision the README does not make. ### Does PowerToys use a lot of RAM? The README does not discuss memory use for PowerToys or for the plugin. What the repository does show is that EverythingPowerToys ships no indexer of its own, so the indexing work and its memory cost stay with the separate Everything program. ### I can't install PowerToys. What should I do? The README does not cover PowerToys installation problems. It only says that EverythingPowerToys is a plugin for PowerToys Run and points to the wiki page for the plugin's own five install methods: Chocolatey, Scoop, WinGet, an EXE self-extraction installer, and a manual ZIP install. ### Are PowerToys free or paid? The README does not state pricing for PowerToys. It does identify EverythingPowerToys itself as licensed under EPL-2.0, and the plugin is distributed through Chocolatey, Scoop, WinGet, an EXE installer and a manual ZIP. ## Sources - [Issues](https://github.com/lin-ycv/EverythingPowerToys/issues) - [License: EPL-2.0](https://github.com/lin-ycv/EverythingPowerToys/blob/main/LICENSE) - [lin-ycv/EverythingPowerToys on GitHub](https://github.com/lin-ycv/EverythingPowerToys) - [README](https://github.com/lin-ycv/EverythingPowerToys/blob/main/README.md) - [Releases](https://github.com/lin-ycv/EverythingPowerToys/releases) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/lin-ycv-everythingpowertoys