Search Multiple PDFs at Once: Find Text Across Many Files

About PDF Multi-Search

Searching one PDF is straightforward. Ctrl+F works inside any document you happen to have open. Searching across a folder of thirty PDFs, or trying to remember which file out of a year of contracts contains a specific clause, is where things fall apart. Multi-Search closes that gap. Drop in any number of PDFs and find every mention of a term across all of them at once, with the exact page and a snippet of context for each hit.

What you can do

Search across many files at once. Drop in five PDFs or fifty. Every file is indexed locally and searched together.
See context, not just hits. Each match shows a snippet of the surrounding sentence so you can tell at a glance whether it's the one you want.
Powerful match options. Toggle case-sensitive, whole-word, or full regex matching for the moments when "John" should not also match "Johnson."
Jump straight to the page. Each result tells you which file and which page the match lives on, so you can open it and read in context.
Export results to CSV. Send the full list of matches into a spreadsheet for review, sharing, or further filtering.

Built for finding things in a pile of documents

Multi-Search is the tool you reach for when "I know it's in there somewhere" turns into a real problem. Lawyers digging through case files for a specific clause. Researchers tracing a citation across a stack of papers. Accountants finding a vendor across years of statements. Auditors checking a folder of policies for outdated language. Anyone who needs to know which document, on which page, mentions the thing they care about.

Common uses

Searching contracts and addenda for a specific clause, party name, or dollar figure.
Hunting an invoice or transaction across years of bank or vendor statements.
Tracing a citation, source, or quote across a stack of research papers and reports.
Finding every mention of a vendor, product, or person across project documents.
Auditing a folder of policies, handbooks, or templates for outdated language or specific terms.

Your files stay on your computer

The entire indexer and search engine run in your browser. The PDFs you load are never uploaded, never sent to a server, and never seen by anyone but you, even when they contain contracts, financial records, or anything else sensitive. Close the tab and the files are gone from this tool entirely.

Common questions

How do I search for text across many PDF files at once?

Load all the PDFs, type your search term, and every occurrence in every file appears with a snippet of surrounding text. One search replaces opening forty documents one by one.

Can I export the search results?

Yes, as CSV: file, location, and context for every match, ready for a spreadsheet or a report. Useful for audits, reviews, and discovery-style work.

What kinds of jobs need multi-PDF search?

Finding a clause across a contract archive, a name across a year of reports, a part number across manuals: any time the question is which documents mention this.

Do the PDFs get uploaded to be searched?

No. The files are read and searched entirely in your browser, so a folder of confidential documents can be searched without any of it leaving your machine.

Does it work on scanned PDFs?

Multi-search reads the text layer, so born-digital PDFs work directly. For scans, run our PDF OCR first to give them a searchable text layer, then search away.