Multi Find

Open multiple Find panels at once. Each panel highlights its term in a unique color and navigates independently.

VS Code's built-in Find lets you search for one term at a time. Multi Find lets you keep many searches active in the same file at once — each in its own color — so you can visually correlate terms, trace state through a function, or compare two patterns without losing your place.

Features

• Multiple persistent Find panels. Press the keybinding once for a yellow panel, again for a green one, again for a pink one. Each stays open and keeps its highlights until you close it.
• Unique color per panel. A 10-color palette assigns each new panel a distinct color; the current match is rendered with a brighter fill and a border so you can see exactly where you are.
• Independent navigation per panel. Each row has its own ↑/↓ buttons, match counter ("3 of 12"), and supports Enter/Shift+Enter and the ↑/↓ arrow keys for cycling.
• Match case · Whole word · Regex toggles per panel, with safe handling of invalid regex and zero-width matches.
• Auto-updates on document edits and active-editor switches.
• Selection pre-fill. If you have text selected in the editor when you open a new panel, it's pre-filled as the search term — just like the native Find widget.
• Overview-ruler markers for every panel, in its color, so you can see hit density at a glance.

Usage

1. Press the keybinding to open the Multi Find sidebar and drop in a new panel.
2. Type a term. Matches highlight in real time in the panel's color.
3. Cycle: ↑ / ↓, Enter / Shift+Enter, F3 / Shift+F3, or click the ▲ / ▼ buttons.
4. Press the keybinding again to open another panel in a different color. The first panel keeps highlighting.
5. Close a panel with the ✕ button — its highlights disappear; the other panels keep theirs.

Keybindings

All keybindings can be reassigned via Keyboard Shortcuts (Cmd+K Cmd+S / Ctrl+K Ctrl+S) — search for "Multi Find".

Commands

• Multi Find: New Find Panel
• Multi Find: Close All Find Panels
• Multi Find: Next Match (most recent panel)
• Multi Find: Previous Match (most recent panel)

Why?

Common workflows where one Find isn't enough:

• Tracing a value through code. Highlight userId, email, and token in three different colors at once and visually follow how each flows through a function.
• Comparing two patterns. Find TODO in yellow and FIXME in pink at the same time to see the distribution across a file.
• Reading dense logs. Tag ERROR, WARN, and a specific request ID, each in its own color, so the eye can pick them out instantly.
• Refactoring. Surface every call site of two related functions in distinct colors before you start moving code.

How it works

Each panel is backed by a TextEditorDecorationType with the panel's color. Matches are recomputed on document edits and active-editor changes. The currently-selected match in a panel gets a brighter overlay decoration so it's always visually distinct from the other matches in that same panel.

Compatibility

Works in VS Code 1.85+ and any VS Code-compatible editor (Cursor, VSCodium, Windsurf, etc.).

Known limitations

• Highlights apply to the active editor only. If you split-view the same document, the inactive split won't show highlights until it becomes active.
• Search state isn't persisted across window reloads.

Roadmap

• Persist sessions across reloads (per workspace).
• Optional in-editor mini-toolbar for the most recent panel.
• "Highlight in all open editors" mode.
• Export matches to a quickpick / problems-panel view.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome at https://github.com/FerociousCentaur/multi-find.

Support

If Multi Find saves you time, you can buy me a chai at https://www.chai4.me/vanand.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.