With PowerGREP, you can quickly search for a piece of information through files and folders on your computer or network. Simply type in a keyword or phrase in the Search box, select which folder PowerGREP should go through and which types of files are of interest. PowerGREP will present you with a list of files and/or individual search matches. Double-clicking a match in the results to open its file and inspect the match's context.

The Search feature is very useful for searching through archived files. Suppose you remember writing a letter or email about something, but you do not remember to who and when, simply type in a relevant keyword in PowerGREP and search through all your archived correspondence. If you are a programmer, you can quickly search through all your source code, or your development tool's library source code. You could type in a function name to see where and how it is used, which is very useful when studying new library functions, or when you plan to modify one of your own library functions. Tracking particular events in huge numbers of log files is easy. Type in a relevant keyword or regular expression (see below) matching the event, and PowerGREP will give you a list of log file lines where that event occurred.