How does Google search the web in less than a second and return many results, but Windows File Explorer takes many seconds to search a relatively tiny amount of information?

Question

How does Google search the web in less than a second and return many results, but Windows File Explorer takes many seconds to search a relatively tiny amount of information?

In: 8

Answer 1

It’ not searching the web when you type something. It’s searching an index file, which is basically one big document.

The web searches occur when it’s otherwise not busy as it updates the index file.

Macs do something similar with their Spotlight search for computers. The computer will index the contents of the drives when not busy and when you search for something, it’s quickly looked up in the index.