Flow Launcher
FreeOne hotkey, two letters, and anything launches
A keystroke launcher for Windows. Hit a hotkey, get a search box, and fuzzy-search to launch programs, open files, run commands, do arithmetic, look up words or control a media player. A rich plugin system extends it to browser bookmarks, translation, process management, clipboard history and much more.
Why we picked it
macOS users have Spotlight and Raycast, and coming back to Windows afterwards hurts: Start menu search is slow, results mix in web suggestions and promoted content, and finding an installed program is often faster by hunting for a desktop icon.
Flow Launcher fills that gap. 15,359 stars, MIT. Press the hotkey (Alt+Space by default), a search box appears, type a few letters, fuzzy matching produces results instantly, Enter runs.
What it does out of the box:
- Launch programs:
vsfinds VS Code,chrfinds Chrome, with initialism matching supported. - Find files, optionally using Everything as the index backend — if you already run Everything, the combination is extremely fast.
- Arithmetic: type
1920*0.6for the answer, with Enter copying it. - Run commands: prefix with
>for a shell command, orshfor an SSH connection. - Web search: type a query and jump straight to your chosen search engine.
- System actions: shut down, restart, lock, empty the recycle bin, all in two keystrokes.
Its plugin ecosystem is where it beats its peers — type pm install inside the launcher to browse
and install. Popular ones cover browser bookmark search, clipboard history, translation, color
pickers, process management, weather and currency rates. Once configured, that box replaces most
of what you would reach for the mouse to do.
To be clear about:
- The download is large. The setup is around 97 MB and the portable archive approaches 200 MB — genuinely big for a launcher, because the .NET runtime is bundled. Resident memory use is also higher than a purely native tool's.
- Windows only. macOS has Raycast and Alfred; Linux has Ulauncher and Albert.
- The first index takes a moment, after which it is fast.
- It coexists with system search rather than replacing it — you simply press a different hotkey. If you are already fully comfortable with Win-key search, the value here is mainly in what the plugins add.
If you spend more time on the keyboard than the mouse, this class of tool usually has the highest return on the time invested.