gdSuite 2 - Taking Desktop Searches to a New Level

Features at a Glance

• Search your computer for files, e-mails, web pages, and instant messaging conversations instantly through Google Desktop.
• Enage advanced filters to limit your search using numerous criteria (below).
• Search from an easy to use, visually pleasing (screenshot) program similiar to Windows Explorer.
• View a list of results with sortable columns containing important information such as file names, e-mail subjects, and dates.
• Look at the snippets to see where the search term is used.
• Open the items from within gdSuite.
• Easily view web page results and saved copies of items using the built-in web browser.
• Open a file's folder directly from gdSuite
• Launch gdSuite from Windows Explorer by right clicking any folder.
• gdSuite checks whether Google Destkop Search is running when you search, and offers to start it if it is not running.
• Search the web for the same terms using a link right below the search button.
• Built-in updater let's you know if a new version of gdSuite is available.
• gdSuite can be used with remote Google Destkop Search tools, such as DNKA (Instructions).
• Right clicking any file shows the Windows Explorer right-click menu, which puts numerous powerful features at your fingertips.

What is gdSuite (In Depth)?

A screenshot of gdSuite in action.

gdSuite is a desktop search client. This means that you can use gdSuite to search for files, e-mails, web pages you've viewed, and instant messaging conversations you've had. gdSuite is a client because it does not actually conduct the searches. It use Google Desktop Search to find the files, and then displays the results for you in an easy to read fashion. Plus, gdSuite displays search results virtually instantly* and has a user interface that is easy to use and, on Windows XP especially, very pretty. To use gdSuite, you must have Google Desktop Search installed on your computer. Download Google Desktop Search from here.

Google Desktop Search is a tool from Google that lets you search your own computer. It can find emails, instant messaging chats, and web pages you've viewed. Plus, it can find any file by filename and can search inside Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and many other files. Sounds great, huh? It is... with two exceptions. For one, Google "forgot" to include a program that lets you use its powerful search tool. The only way to search is to fire up your web browser and go to some hard to remember URL and search from there. Also, Google Desktop is conspicuously missing advanced filters. Sure, you can limit your search to only, say, chats or only files. But what if, for example, you want to find only a Microsoft Excel file named "finances" that was opened within the past month and is located somewhere in the in folder "My Documents," or you want to find only e-mails from a client with "web" in the subject line that were received in August 2004? With regular Google Desktop, you are out of luck. This is where gdSuite comes in.

gdSuite takes searching your own computer to a whole new level. You can engage advanced filters based on the following:

• date (within the last year, month, or week; or between two specific dates)
• medium/item type (file, chat, e-mail, or web page)
• file extension
• file name
• folder name (with subfolders on/off)
• what the web site address contains
• what a web site is titled
• who an e-mail is from
• the subject of an e-mail
• who an instant messaging conversation was with
• text in an item

gdSuite also integrates into Windows Explorer to make searching as fast and easy as possible. Just right click any folder or drive and click Search with gdSuite... to start a new gdSuite search of that folder.

Read more about Google Desktop here.

*Note on Instant Searches:
While gdSuite searches are theoretically instant, they take approximately 2-3 seconds for each 100 results.