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Dowse

Find files by describing them, privately on your PC

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Forget filenames. Dowse is a free, open-source Windows app that lets you find files by describing what you remember. Search documents, images, audio, and video by meaning, not just keywords. Find a forgotten photo, a specific PDF page, or the exact moment in a recording. Powered by Google DeepMind's EmbeddingGemma 2, Dowse runs AI locally on your PC. No cloud uploads, no subscriptions, and no compromises on privacy. Find what you remember, not what you named.

PH · launched Oct 21, 2026 · 1 upvote (top 67%) · 0 views

Niche: desktop file management utilities · 185 launches, 29 in the last 7 days ▼ -6% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags

  • Horizontal
  • Search & retrieval
  • Prosumer
  • AI-native
  • Commercial product
  • Productivity
  • Open Source
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • GitHub

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

Could you build this?

Yes A local semantic file search app combines existing open embedding and transcription models with a file indexer and a Windows UI. These are standard components a vibe coder can assemble.

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 150 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #78 of 151 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 200 days after the earliest competitor.

  • ArchiveMind · ph · 2026-10-06 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.49
  • JustDocz · ph · 2026-09-26 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.48
  • Linda Probe · ph · 2026-11-05 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.47
  • Files Go · ph · 2026-10-22 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.47
  • Filee · github · 2026-09-29 · 28 upvotes · similarity 0.45
  • Filee · ph · 2026-10-10 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.44
  • paperlight · github · 2026-09-26 · 12 upvotes · similarity 0.43
  • scry · github · 2026-10-13 · 16 upvotes · similarity 0.42

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