Folder Scout for Windows

Folder Scout promises to help users eliminate tedious, confusing searches through folder trees to locate a specific document. However, some users may find this program's structure to be a larger obstacle than the trees it aims to replace.

This program presents its interface in a puzzling fashion. The display is broken into three pieces: the top being a Root Folder Quick Jump; the middle a selection of four tabs allowing users to seek folders as a disk tree, Favorites, Recent Folders, and Recent Docs; and the bottom being reserved for a standard search feature. Each option offers a different way of finding folders. The end result was normally a list of files and subfolders attached to each. We found that the simplest way to locate items was by using the standard search function, which takes a key word or words and skims the hard drive.

Folder Scout lists folders and files as it claims, but doesn't differentiate itself from the traditional file tree enough. Most search results, no matter which of the three methods one uses, result in something that looks an awful lot like a file tree itself. On top of this, by showing the three different search methods at once, users may be confused as to whether they are used individually or in conjunction with one another.

Overall, this 30-day trial doesn't live up to its promises of making file trees obsolete. We can't recommend a program that could potentially be harder to use than the built-in Windows Explorer search tool, especially since it doesn't offer that much more in return.