How to search all the PDF files on your computer for a word

You know a PDF somewhere on your computer says "policy number 4471" or "notice period", but not which one, or which folder it's in. Here's how to search every PDF at once, from the quickest way to the most thorough.

1Windows 10 and 11: File Explorer

1. Open File Explorer and click This PC (or the drive or folder to look in).
2. In the search box, type content: followed by the word, for example content:4471, or content:"notice period" for a phrase.
3. To see only PDFs, add ext:pdf: content:"notice period" ext:pdf.

Whether this finds anything depends on two settings:

• Is the folder indexed? Windows searches file contents quickly only in indexed places, by default your user folders (Documents, Desktop, Downloads). To cover the whole PC, open Settings, search for "Searching Windows", and choose Enhanced. Indexing a whole drive takes a while the first time.
• Are PDF contents indexed? Open Indexing Options from the Start menu, click Advanced, then the File Types tab, find pdf and check it says Index Properties and File Contents.

In folders that aren't indexed, File Explorer only matches file names unless you turn on Always search file names and contents (Folder Options, Search tab). That search is slow on a big drive, but it works.

• ✓ Good: nothing to install, searches the whole PC once indexed.
• ✗ Misses: it shows which files match, not where in them, so you still open each one and press Ctrl+F. Exact words only. Scanned pages are skipped.

2Mac: Finder and Spotlight

Spotlight indexes the text in PDFs by default, so the fastest way is Cmd+Space and the phrase. To see every match as a list:

1. In Finder, press Cmd+F.
2. Type the word, then choose Contents (not "Name") in the suggestion that appears.
3. Choose This Mac, and add a Kind is PDF rule with the + button to see only PDFs.

• ✓ Good: instant, already set up, whole Mac.
• ✗ Misses: like Windows, it tells you which file, not which page; exact words only; scans without a text layer aren't found.

3Acrobat Reader: search a whole drive, with the page

The free Adobe Acrobat Reader can search every PDF under a folder or a whole drive, and shows each match in its sentence with the page.

1. Open Acrobat Reader and press Shift+Ctrl+F (Shift+Cmd+F on a Mac).
2. Under "Where would you like to search?", choose All PDF Documents in, then Browse for Location and pick the drive, for example C:.
3. Type the word or phrase and click Search.

• ✓ Good: shows every match in context with its page; no index to set up.
• ✗ Misses: slow on a drive with thousands of PDFs, because it opens each one. Exact words only, and nothing on scanned pages.

4Linux, or the command line anywhere

pdfgrep searches every PDF under a folder and prints each matching line with its page: pdfgrep -r -n -i "notice period" ~. For a searchable index of a whole home folder, Recoll (on Linux, Windows and Mac) reads PDFs along with most other document types.

When you don't know the exact words

Every method above finds the words you type, letter for letter. That fails more often than it seems: you search "cancel" and the contract says "terminate", you search "notice period" and it says "sixty days' written notice", or the page is a scan with no text at all.

For that, gather the PDFs that could hold the answer into one folder (copies are fine) and open it in AskFolder. It searches by meaning as well as by words, reads scanned pages, and shows the passage with its file and page. It runs in your browser, so the files stay on your computer. It searches a folder rather than a whole drive, and the free version reads up to 50 files.

For a deeper comparison of the tools that search a folder of PDFs, see six free ways to search text in many PDFs.