Entrian Source Search

is a powerful search plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio. It's the fastest way to search and navigate your source code.

Download or Buy now:

The free trial gives you 30 individual days of usage.

Volume discount:
5 or more users: $24 each

Quick links:

Latest blog entries:

Customer soundbite:

“I love Source Search - it really helps me to get a grasp on the large, multi developer, project I'm working on.”

– Casper K, Holland
More testimonials...

A price rise is coming

On Sunday November 22nd 2026, the price of an Entrian Source Search license will increase to $40 (the first price rise since its release in 2008!) The volume discount will go away at the same time.

As of that date, you'll also get more for your money, but that's for a future announcement.

Entrian Source Search Online Manual

Entrian Source Search on the command line: ess.exe

Intro: the Search window
Searching
Multiple tabs
Indexing
Options
Keyboard shortcuts
When things go wrong
The command line: ess.exe

ess.exe is the Entrian Source Search command line tool. You can use it to:

Create an index, specifying the root directories, inclusions, exclusions, etc.
Update an index by scanning for changed source files.
Update an index by watching the file system for changes in real time.
Search one or more indexes.
Unlock an index that's been left locked after a crash.
Detect and repair a corrupt index.

Usage-wise, let's allow ess.exe to speak for itself:

> ess.exe
Usage:

Create a new index, for one or more root source directories:
  ess create <switches>
    where <switches> are:
      -index=C:\path\to\new.index (or -i=...) [required]
      -root=C:\path\to\my\code (or -r=...) [required] [can be repeated]
      -watch (or -w)
      -include=*.c,*.h (or -inc=...) [can be repeated]
      -exclude=*.xml;*.yaml (or -exc=...) [can be repeated]
      -ignoreglobalinclusions (or -igi)
      -ignoreglobalexclusions (or -ige)
      -log=log.txt (or -l=...)

Update an index: scan the code for changes; optionally wait for further changes:
  ess update <switches>
    where <switches> are:
      -index=C:\path\to\the.index (or -i=...) [required]
      -watch (or -w)
      -log=log.txt (or -l=...)

Search an index:
  ess search <switches>
    where <switches> are:
      -index=C:\path\to\the.index (or -i=...) [required] [can be repeated]
      -verbosity=1-100 (or -v=...)
      -fuzzy (or -f)
      -case (or -c)
      -log=log.txt (or -l=...)
      -showcount (or -s)

Unlock an index that's been left locked after a crash:
  ess unlock <switches>
    where <switches> are:
      -index=C:\path\to\the.index (or -i=...) [required]
      -log=log.txt (or -l=...)

Check whether an index is corrupt, and optionally fix it (can be slow!):
  ess check <switches>
    where <switches> are:
      -index=C:\path\to\the.index (or -i=...) [required]
      -fix (or -f)


Commands can be abbreviated: (c)reate, (up)date, (s)earch, (un)lock, (ch)eck

>

When you search using ess.exe, the results are nicely highlighed:

> ess search -index=C:\src\ess.index search * query ext:cs
C:\src\IM\EntrianSourceSearch\SearchForm.cs(765):         name = "Search query";
C:\src\IM\IndexCore\Index.cs(1491):                Hits hits = indexSearcher.Search(query);
C:\src\IM\IndexCore\Index.cs(2304):     indexSearcher.search(query, hits);
C:\src\IM\IndexCore\Index.cs(2962):     // Did they only enter filters and no search query?
C:\src\IM\IndexCore\Index.cs(3059):             int count = searcher.Search(query).Length();
C:\src\IM\IndexCore\Index.cs(3077):         int count = searcher.Search(query).Length();
C:\src\IM\IndexCore\Index.cs(3120):             searcher.Search(query, filter, hits);
C:\src\IM\IndexCore\Index.cs(3124):             searcher.Search(query, hits);
C:\src\IM\IndexCore\QueryParser.cs(211):     // an "Enter a search term as well as filter" error if the query has

>

ess.exe sets the errorlevel like this:

0 for success; for the search command an errorlevel of 0 means that some results were found.
1 for a search with no errors but no results.
2 for errors.

Entrian Source Search makes Visual Studio faster and more productive to use. and try it for yourself.