Recoll For Linux

Recoll is an open source application that has been designed from the ground up to provide users with a personal full-text search utility for their GNU/Linux desktop environments. It is based on the well known Xapian backend.

Key features include easy installation, support for popular UNIX-based systems, modern graphical user interface powered by Qt, support for the Unity user interface of the Ubuntu operating system, support for common file types, as well as support for multiple languages.

The application features support for multiple character encodings, state-of-the-art query functionality, support for email attachments, transparent handling of common UNIX archive formats, including gzip and bzip2, file and folder filters, and comprehensive documentation.

Natively indexed file types include Plain Text, HTML, Mailbox, Maildir, Pidgin and Purple log files, Man Pages, Dia diagrams, Powerpoint and Excel documents. Also, thanks to external helpers, the program is also capable of indexing documents from well known apps, such as AbiWord, KWord, OpenOffice, Gnumeric and Okular.

Among other features, we can mention that Recoll can be used inside the Mozilla Firefox web browser, through an add-on, allowing users to easily index visited web pages. it can process multiple email attachments at once using multiple selectable databases, and uses wildcard searches.

It provides users with a modern graphical user interface written with the Qt GUI toolkit and designed to index user's home directories from the get-go. The indexing process can be stopped at any time, and it is also possible to erase search and document history, as well as to view indexed types and missing helpers.

Search results can be easily sorted by date, oldest or newest first, viewed as table or saved as a spreadsheet file in the common CSV (Comma Separated Value) file format. From the Preferences dialog, users can configure the indexing schedule, the graphical user interface, and external tools.