Recoll

Recoll
DeveloperJean-François Dockes
Stable release
1.44.1 Edit this on Wikidata / 22 July 2026; 3 months ago (22 July 2026)
Written inC++ and Python
Operating systemUnix-like, Windows, Mac OS X, former: OS/2
TypeSearch tool
LicenseGPL
Websitewww.recoll.org
Repository

Recoll is a desktop search tool that provides full-text search in a GUI with a few mandatory external dependencies. It runs on many Unix-like operating systems and is mostly independent of the desktop environment. Recoll has been ported to OS/2, and the OS/2-based ArcaOS.

Recoll was designed not to require a permanent daemon; on Linux systems, it can make use of inotify. Recoll updates its index at designed intervals (for example, through cronjobs), but if desired, the indexing task can run as a file-system monitoring daemon for real-time index updates.

Features

File type supported

File types indexed natively

  • Text.
  • Html.
  • Maildir, MH, and mailbox (Mozilla, Thunderbird, and Evolution). Evolution requires .cache to be removed from the skippedNames list in the GUI Indexing preferences/Local Parameters/ Pane to index local copies of IMAP mail.
  • Gaim and purple log files.
  • Scribus files.
  • Man pages (needs Groff).
  • Mimehtml web archive format (support based on the mail filter).
  • All the following need Python 3:
    • Dia diagrams.
    • Excel and PowerPoint (pre-open XML).
    • Tar archives. Tar file indexing is disabled by default given that tar archives don't typically contain the kind of documents that people search for, so it needs to be enabled explicitly with "[index]" or "application/x-tar=execm rcltar" in a $HOME/.recoll/mimeconf file.
    • Zip archives.
    • Konqueror web archive format (uses the tarfile Python standard library module).

File types indexed with external helpers

  • PDF files.
  • MS-Word files.
  • Wordperfect files.
  • RTF files.
  • Image and audio file tags.
  • Abiword files.
  • Fb2, Epub, and CHM ebooks.
  • Kword files.
  • Microsoft Office traditional and Open XML files.
  • OpenOffice files.
  • SVG files.
  • Okular annotations files.
  • HWP files (without page numbering).

See also

References

  1. ↑ "recoll-v1.44.1". 22 July 2026. Retrieved 2 August 2026.
  2. ↑ "recoll logo Release notes for Recoll 1.44.x". 23 July 2026. Retrieved 2 August 2026.
  3. ↑ "Recoll for OS/2". ecsoft2.org. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  4. ↑ Dockes, Jean-François. "Recoll Indexing". Archived from the original on 2023-11-13. Retrieved 2023-11-10.
  5. ↑ "Recoll Features" (in English and French). Retrieved 2023-11-10.[permanent dead link]