Giving it a try

If you do not like reading manuals (who does?) but wish to give Recoll a try, just install the application and start the recoll graphical user interface (GUI), which will ask permission to index your home directory, allowing you to search immediately after indexing completes.

Do not do this if your home directory contains a huge number of documents and you do not want to wait or are very short on disk space. In this case, you may first want to customise the configuration to restrict the indexed area. From the recoll GUI go to: PreferencesIndexing configuration, then adjust the Start folders section (or Top directories in older Recoll versions), which defines the directories from which the filesystem exploration starts.

By default, the indexer process writes all errors to its stderr output, which may be lost if you started the GUI from the desktop. You may find it useful to assign a file name to the Indexer log file name entry on the above indexing preferences screen. With the default level of 3, this will list all processed documents, and all errors (lines beginning with :2:).

On Unix-like systems, you may need to install the appropriate supporting applications for document types that need them (for example antiword for Microsoft Word files). The Windows package is self-contained and includes most useful auxiliary programs. After the indexing ran, the recoll GUI ToolsMissing helpers menu entry will show a list of missing supporting applications for the documents found in the indexed area.