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Velocmd

A lightning fast, native system launcher. Search files, run commands, and navigate your system seamlessly.

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Velocmd is a high-performance system launcher and file indexer designed to bring a unified, instant command palette to Windows. Powered by a Rust backend and a lightweight Tauri frontend, it bypasses the sluggish native Windows search by utilizing an optimized, in-memory indexing strategy.

Windows power users have long suffered through a native search experience that is notoriously slow, bloated with web results, and visually cumbersome. Velocmd was built to solve this with a single, uncompromising philosophy: Zero latency, zero bloat, and total keyboard control.

Core Capabilities

Velocmd is more than just an app launcher. It is a unified command palette for your entire Windows system.

⚡ Lightning Fast, In-Memory Search

Unlike traditional indexers that constantly read and write to a background database, Velocmd aggressively scans your Start Menu, local AppData, and mounted drives upon startup using multithreaded directory traversal. It stores this index directly in memory, resulting in sub-millisecond query responses.

🏷️ Smart Tag Filtering

Filter through thousands of files instantly without touching your mouse. By typing an / or @ prefix, you can activate smart chips to narrow your search context:

  • Types: /apps, /folders, /files, /settings
  • Drives: /C:, /D:
  • Actions: /cmd (Terminal execution), /search (Web)

⚙️ Deep System Integration

Velocmd plugs directly into native Windows settings. Without navigating through menus, you can instantly search for and launch:

  • Deep system settings (e.g., Sound Settings, Apps & Features, Environment Variables)
  • Legacy tools (e.g., Control Panel, Registry Editor, Task Manager)
  • Power states (e.g., Shutdown, Restart)
  • Media controls (Play/Pause, Next/Prev Track)

🕸️ Instant Web & Terminal Routing

Need to look something up or run a script? Velocmd routes your queries seamlessly.

  • Terminal: Type !cmd ping google.com to instantly spawn a command prompt executing your script.
  • Web: Prefix queries with /google, /duck, or /bing to instantly open your default browser to the search results.

Indexing Performance

All tests were performed on a cold start, dropping file system caches between runs, and indexing across all connected drives.

Dataset Scope Item Count Windows Indexer Velocmd
Full System (All Drives) ~1M Items Hours ~3.97 seconds
Re-indexing (Warm) ~1M Items Background ~4.10 seconds

Note: Velocmd utilizes maximum available threads to build an in-memory index instantly.

Under the Hood

Velocmd is engineered for performance, keeping its footprint incredibly small while maximizing speed.

  • Backend (Rust): Handles the heavy lifting. It utilizes multithreading for file traversal, interfaces directly with the Windows API to extract native .exe and .lnk icons, and manages the global shortcut hooks.
  • Frontend (Vanilla JS + HTML/CSS): A completely custom, dependency-free frontend ensures the UI renders instantly without the overhead of heavy JavaScript frameworks like React or Vue.
  • Bridge (Tauri): Packages the application into an ultra-lean binary, consuming a fraction of the RAM required by traditional Electron-based launchers.

Pricing

Velocmd isn't just built for speed, it's built on trust.

  • Absolutely Free & Open Source: There are no paywalls, no premium tiers, and no subscriptions. The entire codebase is open-source and community-driven.
  • Strictly Local: Your data is yours. The index is built locally, stored entirely in your RAM, and wiped the moment you close the application.
  • Zero Telemetry: Velocmd is absolutely private by design. There is no background tracking, no cloud syncing, and no analytics. What happens on your machine stays on your machine.

If you do want to support this project - please star ✨ the repository. And, if you really liked the app, you can always buy me a coffee! ☕