Find any app from Windows Start search — even when you type in the wrong keyboard layout.
Adds managed synonyms to the internal Windows Search AppsIndex.db so that apps are found regardless of whether you typed in Latin or Cyrillic (or any other supported layout).
Note
Windows 11 Only. This tool relies on the Windows 11 internal Search database schema and will not work correctly on Windows 10 or older versions.
| CLI | UI |
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Choose the install mode that fits you:
Download win-search-aliases-ui-<version>.exe from the latest release, launch it, and click Auto Generate All.
No Python is required, and after generation finishes you can start using Windows Search right away.
Installs the tool, adds it to PATH, runs automatic alias generation, and leaves everything ready to use:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/mbv06/win-search-aliases/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iex"python -m pip install --upgrade https://github.com/mbv06/win-search-aliases/releases/latest/download/win-search-aliases-python.tar.gzThen run win-search-aliases auto or open the UI with win-search-aliases-ui.
Choose how you want to work:
win-search-aliases-uiwin-search-aliases autowin-search-aliases interactiveMore commands
# Generate aliases for specific apps
win-search-aliases generate-selected --map uk-jcuken
# Add a custom alias
win-search-aliases add-custom --app "Google Chrome" --alias browser
# List / remove managed aliases
win-search-aliases list-managed
win-search-aliases remove-managed
# Restore from backup
win-search-aliases restore-backup --latest
# Preview without changes
win-search-aliases generate-all --map auto --dry-run- Reads the Windows Search
AppsIndex.db(SQLite) located in%LOCALAPPDATA%. - For each app, generates transliterated synonyms based on the selected keyboard layout map.
- Writes synonym rows with managed
sourcetags — only those rows are ever touched. - Restarts
SearchHostso Start search picks up the changes immediately.
Note
A timestamped backup is created before every write. Use restore-backup to roll back at any time.
The tool comes with a set of default keyboard maps. You can see the full list of natively supported layouts in the keyboard_maps.toml file.
If your preferred layout is not supported, you can easily add it yourself! Check out the Adding Custom Keyboard Layouts guide for instructions on how to define your own layout.
- Only rows created by this tool (sources:
WinSearchAliasesAuto,WinSearchAliasesManual,WinSearchAliasesCustom) are modified or removed. - Re-running commands is idempotent — no duplicate rows.
- This is an unofficial edit of the Windows Search database. It may need to be re-applied after major Windows updates or search index rebuilds.
Before completely removing the tool, you should remove all managed aliases from the Windows Search database:
win-search-aliases remove-managedThen, depending on how you installed it:
If installed via the PowerShell script (install.ps1):
Simply delete the created virtual environment directory (this will keep your backups safe):
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\win-search-aliases\venv"If installed manually (pip):
python -m pip uninstall win-search-aliases