Flow Launcher

by Jeremy Wu for Windows 8.1

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Seamless workflow

Flow Launcher is a smart and open-source utility tool dedicated to speeding up the workflow of Windows desktops. Developed with the community in mind, this all-in-one app launcher and the search engine provide you with the best results on system files, programs, as well as online searches. Within your keyboard, you can find everything here—applications, files, bookmarks, YouTube, Twitter, and so on. It is considered to be the counterpart of macOS’s Spotlight search bar.

Incredible capabilities and customizations

One of the most discouraging features of Windows is its Start Menu search function. It’s not intuitive and helpful at all. Oftimes, you will be forced to manually search for the files/documents/directories that you need to access. With this free program, that frustration will be swept away as you can now efficiently find any files in the simplest way possible. It is a well-designed search engine tool that returns only the most accurate results.

Flow Launcher is also highly customizable. From within the app’s settings, you will be able to modify its appearance in any way you want. You have a variety of themes to choose from. You can also change the query box and results’ fonts. You can even customize your hotkeys, as well. This software is not portable upon installing it but you can enable its portal mode once the installation is done. 

However, do bear in mind that if you came from the non-portable version, this particular action can remove the roaming data profile and will then be stored separately. You will be amazed by its plugin addition as it can enable you to install through shell and system commands. Not only that, in its search bar, you can do URL and web searches directly and check colors just by inserting the HEX codes.  

Enhances the Windows experience

Flow Launcher can make up for the flawed Start Menu search function that Windows provides. It is powerful, intuitive, and immediate. Anything that you search here will have the best result instantly. Apart from that, it is highly customizable thus, you can tweak its look to your liking or in accordance with your OS theme. If you’ve ever wondered how macOS’s Spotlight works, this is the closest thing to an equivalent experience on Windows.