EasyFind alternative: Peekaboo vs EasyFind
By Vishva Variya · Updated
EasyFind is a free utility from DEVONtechnologies that searches without an index, so it reaches files Spotlight leaves out. It matches names, contents, tags and comments, and it takes boolean operators, wildcards, phrases and regular expressions. Peekaboo is a paid app with a different temperament: you type what you remember in ordinary words, and it shows how it read you before you trust the results.
Looking for EasyFind itself? It’s at www.devontechnologies.com.
- EasyFind price
- Free
- EasyFind requires
- OS X 10.11 or later
- Peekaboo
- $24.99 one-time, 14-day trial, macOS 14+
EasyFind figures from devontechnologies.com/apps/freeware, verified 2026-11-02.
Why pick Peekaboo over EasyFind?
No operators to remember
EasyFind rewards knowing its syntax. In Peekaboo, “screenshots with wifi password” is the entire query, and the “Understood as …” line shows the filters it built.
Fast index, plus a full walk
Peekaboo uses Spotlight’s index for speed, and Search Everywhere walks the whole disk for files the index misses. Tokens like ext:, path: and hidden: narrow either one.
Words that only exist as pixels
A content search can only match text a file already holds; a screenshot’s words are just pixels. Peekaboo reads them with Apple Vision on your Mac, so they become searchable.
Peekaboo vs EasyFind, job by job
| Job | EasyFind | Peekaboo |
|---|---|---|
| Precise patterns | Boolean, wildcards, phrases, regular expressions | Plain English with ext:, path:, kind:code and hidden: tokens; no regex |
| How it finds files | Scans directly, no index | Spotlight’s index, plus Search Everywhere for what it skips |
| Text inside screenshots and scans | Not on its feature list | On-device OCR, searchable and copyable |
| After you find it | Previews and actions on the result list | Duplicates, Clean Up and Space Map, all undoable |
| Price and macOS | Free, OS X 10.11 or later | One-time, 14-day free trial, macOS 14 or later |
The honest verdict
If you think in regular expressions, need a search tool on an older Mac, or simply don’t want to pay, EasyFind is the right answer. Peekaboo is for people who would rather describe the file than write a pattern for it, and who also want the text in images and a tidier disk.
EasyFind vs Peekaboo: questions
Is EasyFind still free?
- Yes. DEVONtechnologies lists EasyFind 5.0.2 among its free utilities, for OS X 10.11 El Capitan or later, as of November 2, 2026.
Does Peekaboo support regular expressions?
- No. It combines plain-English phrases with tokens such as ext:pdf, path:Projects, kind:code and hidden:, which cover most of what people reach for regex to do.
Can Peekaboo find files Spotlight hasn’t indexed?
- Yes, with Search Everywhere, which walks the whole disk. Hidden files are included when Show Hidden Files (⇧⌘.) is on.