Q: How can I search through a ton of old documents on our server?

A: Two free Windows searching utilities are what you need. "Everything" searches file names in a flash. Anytxt does full-text searches through your all your drives.

Do you need to find an old letter you wrote on a legal issue? Perhaps only your more recent documents are quickly available in your practice management system.

I rely on Everything (https://www.voidtools.com) all the time to find old files by name or partial name. Its author is out of Australia. Everything is so much faster than clicking through folders even when you know where a file is. Everything is free and well-maintained. It does not bog down the way Windows Search does.

If you want Everything to search the server from your computer, you need add one or more server folders, or the whole thing, using: Tools / Options / Folders / Add. You may need to type \\ ServerName to show the server folders.

Anytxt (https://anytxt.net) is another excellent, free utility. Its author is in Singapore. Anytxt indexes the contents of all the documents in all your drives. You can select which file extensions to include in the indexes. Searching inside documents is fast and flexible. You can use the operators and (&), or (|) and not (!) along with "quoted" words and parentheses to refine your searches. Just press F1 for Help with advanced searches.

Looking for a needle in your haystacks of documents? The free utilities, Everything and Anytxt, are your friends.