Emacs: Search Text in Directory
Find Text in a Directory (no need grep)
Emacs: Xah Find Replace (xah-find.el)
Find Text in a Directory (need grep)
- Alt+x
grep
-
List all matching text of all files in the current directory.
(Emacs
grep
command calls the unixgrep
command. On Microsoft Windows, you need to install it.)
The current directory is usually the folder the current opend file is in. You can first calldired
to a folder you want.
It will prompt you like this:grep --color -nH -e ▮
. For example, if you give this inputgrep -nH -e "Cheshire" *html
. If you want case insensitive search, add a-i
in the grep option.

grep
output, showing list of files with matched text.
Find Text in Nested Directories (need grep)
Find text in directory and all subdirectories, you can call any of:
- Alt+x
rgrep
- Search all files in current directory and subdirectory.
- Alt+x
lgrep
- Search only some files of current dir by using a regex on file names first.
- Alt+x
grep-find
-
Use a combination of unix
grep
andfind
commands. Example prompt:find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 -e grep -nH -e MySearchStr▮
. (the exact prompt depends on your OS.)
Search Text from Dired (need grep)
- Alt+x
dired-do-find-regexp
-
Find all matches for REGEXP in marked files or the file under cursor.
Requires the unix command
find
,xargs
,grep
.
Show Matched Files in Dired (need grep)
- Alt+x
find-dired
-
Run unix
find
command to list files and show them in dired. [see Emacs: File Manager, dired]