Cathy review
A focused catalog for finding files by name, date, and size across disks and media.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Cathy is a free, portable Windows utility for cataloging files across removable media, hard disks, and network drives. It suits people who want a searchable record of files spread across disks, including when the original media is not available. Searches can use file name, date, and size, with filters plus duplicate-file and single-file searches. It is a catalog and filename discovery tool, not a general content-search application.
The key distinction is what Cathy indexes and searches: catalog entries and their metadata, rather than the contents of files. That makes it useful for locating a file by its name or recorded properties, but a poor fit when the goal is to find text inside documents, email, or messages, or to search scanned material with OCR. Its additional utilities—disk-space investigation, drag and drop, and printing directory trees or MP3 album and song lists—extend the catalog workflow without changing that boundary.
Cathy is listed as a free download, and the current listed release is version 2.33 for Windows XP SP3, Vista SP2, Windows 7, and later. It can open or delete found files when they are present; when media is unavailable, the catalog supports discovery but cannot make the actual file accessible. Choose Cathy for a lightweight Windows catalog of files across disks and removable media. Choose another tool if you need file-content search or a platform beyond Windows.
Cathy pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Catalogs removable media, hard disks, and network drives
- Searches catalog entries by filename, date, and size
- Prints directory trees and MP3 album or song lists
- Where it doesn't
- Does not search file contents
- Windows-only, with the listed release for Windows XP SP3, Vista SP2, Windows 7, and later
- Catalog searches depend on entries rather than searching unavailable media directly
Cathy fact sheet, pricing and score →
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