lolcate

Author: Nicolas Girard
Alternative to: locate
Language: Rust
This page last updated:

lolcate is a modern, Rust-based replacement for the traditional locate/mlocate/updatedb tools. It provides high-performance filesystem indexing with powerful search capabilities.

  • Flexible configuration with pattern-based exclusions
  • UTF-8 compliant regex search functionality
  • Multiple independent databases
  • Smart-case searching (case-insensitive for lowercase patterns)
  • Predefined file type filters (images, video, documents, audio)
  • Single binary executable with no external dependencies
Architecture diagram showing the two-phase indexing and querying workflow
Architecture diagram showing the two-phase indexing and querying workflow

Basic usage

# Create a new database with custom configuration.
lolcate index -c config.toml

# Search for files matching a pattern.
lolcate search pattern

# Case-sensitive search using uppercase letters.
lolcate search MyPattern

# Search with regex patterns.
lolcate search '\.rs$'