Getting started on Windows.

• A PC running Windows 10 (version 1803+) or Windows 11.
• ~1.2 GB free disk space for the app and its AI model, plus about 100 MB per 25k files for the search index.
• Optional but recommended: a DirectX 12 GPU from NVIDIA (GTX 1060 or newer, or RTX), AMD, or Intel (Arc or integrated). Indexing runs faster on a GPU and uses your existing graphics driver. There is nothing extra to install.
• A sound library in WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP3, OGG, or Opus. M4A also needs ffmpeg installed and on your PATH. Windows has no built-in M4A decoder. Local drives, mapped network drives, UNC paths, and cloud filesystems like LucidLink all work.
• An internet connection once, to activate your license key. After that Arc Search works offline. When online, it checks your license and looks for updates at startup. Your audio never leaves your PC, and your files are never copied or moved.

1. Run the downloaded .exe installer.
2. The installer is code-signed, so the install prompt shows a verified publisher. SmartScreen may still show "Windows protected your PC" on first download, because the signing certificate is still new. If it does, click More info → Run anyway.
3. Read the license agreement, choose "I accept", and click Next.
4. Follow the installer. Arc Search installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\ArcSearch\ for your Windows user only, with no administrator prompt, and adds a Start Menu entry.

Launch Arc Search from the Start Menu.

Arc Search opens on its license screen. Enter the license key from your purchase email or the checkout page and click Activate. Activation needs an internet connection.

No license yet? Click Continue demo. The evaluation runs for 14 days with every feature, and the header shows the days left. The license screen appears at each launch until you activate a key. After 14 days, Arc Search needs a license key to open.

One license covers two machines at a time. To move Arc Search to a new machine, open Preferences (the gear button or Ctrl+,) on the old one and choose Sign out of this machine under License. If you no longer have the old machine, release it at arcantus.io/license/release/.

On the first-run setup screen:

• Click the folder picker and choose your sound library's root folder, or
• Paste a path, such as a UNC path (\\server\share\sfx), a mapped drive (T:\SFX), or a LucidLink mount. Mapped drives also appear in the folder picker.

You can add more libraries later with Add Library in the library menu (top right). Arc Search only reads your library. It never moves, renames, or writes anything in it.

Arc Search picks the best available device. With a DirectX 12 GPU it indexes on the GPU (DirectML), which works with NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. Otherwise it uses the CPU. When more than one device is available, the setup screen shows a Hardware Acceleration card where you can choose. The Resource Usage slider trades indexing speed for headroom. Lower it if you will be working in your DAW or game engine while Arc indexes. To change either setting later, open Hardware in the library menu while no index is running.

Click Start Indexing.

Arc reads the full audio of every file and runs it through a neural network, which is what lets you search for what a sound sounds like. This is slower than a filename-only scan, and it is a one-time cost. After the first pass, rescans skip unchanged files and take a few seconds.

Rough first-index times:

Benchmarked on:

• Alienware m15 R6 laptop
• Intel Core i7-11800H CPU, NVIDIA RTX 3080 Laptop GPU
• 32 GB of memory
• Library on a local NVMe SSD

PCs with older or smaller GPUs, such as a GTX 1060, and longer files take longer.

Network library index speeds are driven by your network connection. It's best to leave large indexes on network drives running overnight.

While it runs:

• Files become searchable as they're indexed.
• Stop Index in the library menu stops after the current batch. Everything indexed so far stays searchable, and Reindex picks up where it left off.
• Closing the app or letting your PC sleep loses at most the batch in progress, which is redone on the next rescan.

Type how you'd describe the sound to another designer:

• heavy metal door slam with long tail
• small glass debris scatter
• low rumbling earthquake bed

• The Search Mode slider above the search box blends keyword matching (left) with sonic/AI matching (right). The default is 60% sonic. Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, and Ctrl+3 switch to keyword, hybrid, and sonic mode.
• Each result has a badge showing why it matched: S (sonic), K (keyword), or H (hybrid: both). Hover it for details.
• Add NOT (in capitals) to exclude the word after it: metal impact NOT glass. Quote a phrase to exclude all of it: NOT "broken glass".
• To search within results, press Ctrl+L (or click the lock icon) and type a refinement. "explosion" → Ctrl+L → "glass" searches only the explosion results. Ctrl+Shift+L backs out one layer. Esc clears the search.
• The shuffle toggle (Ctrl+S) randomizes which equally-relevant sounds lead the results list. Ctrl+Shift+S re-rolls.
• Drop any audio file onto the search bar to find sounds similar to it.
• Ctrl+F jumps to the search box.

• Click a row to load it in the waveform preview, or double-click to play it. ↑/↓ move through results, and Space plays or pauses. Enter jumps back to the start without stopping. 0 stops and returns to the start.
• Click-drag on the waveform to select a region. L loops the region (or the whole file), and Backspace clears it.
• The preview bar has separate Speed and Pitch (±12 semitones) controls. From the keyboard, Alt+↑/Alt+↓ change pitch by a semitone, Alt+←/Alt+→ change speed, and Alt+[ ] change volume. Add Shift for a finer step (a tenth of a semitone for pitch). R resets speed and pitch. Each launch starts at 1.00× / 0 st.
• Rows you've heard turn orange. H clears the marks.
• Press ? for the full shortcut map.

Each method includes your region selection, speed, and pitch:

1. Drag a result row (or the highlighted waveform region) onto your DAW timeline. Regions export as 24-bit WAV. Files on network storage (UNC paths) drag correctly.
2. Copy with Ctrl+C in Arc, then paste in your DAW.
3. Insert into DAW with Ctrl+Enter. Arc brings your running DAW to the front and pastes the sound at its edit cursor. It detects Reaper, Pro Tools, Cubase, Nuendo, WaveLab, Ableton Live, Studio One, Bitwig Studio, FL Studio, Premiere Pro, Audition, DaVinci Resolve, Mixbus, Samplitude, Sound Forge, Digital Performer, Reason, and Pyramix. If more than one of these is open, Arc picks the one you used last.

If Insert doesn't reach your DAW, tell us which DAW and Windows version (see Feedback).

Click the file count in the top-right corner:

• Add Library indexes another folder.
• Reindex picks up new and changed files, including re-tagged WAVs and re-rendered bounces. Checkboxes choose which libraries it scans.
• × on a library row removes that library from the index and from search.
• Disable hides a library from results and keeps its index. Enable brings it back.

The left sidebar shows each library as a folder tree. Click a folder to search only inside it.

Preferences

Click the gear button or press Ctrl+, to open Preferences.

• Remember folder selection in Back/Forward: Back and Forward also bring back the folders you selected or excluded. On by default.
• Return to the top on a new result set: new results start at the top of the list. On by default.
• Play surround files on surround speakers: each channel plays on its own speaker. When it is off, surround files play in stereo. On by default.
• Fast preview mode: a click plays a result, and the arrow keys play each row they land on. Ctrl+Shift+P turns it on and off. Off by default.
• Reset pitch and speed on a new file: pitch and speed go back to 0 st and 1.00× when you pick another sound. Off by default.
• Apply pitch and speed to every sound in a multi-file transfer: sounds you send together get your pitch and speed. On by default.

Favorites

• Click the star on a result row to add it to Favorites. F stars the sound in the preview. Click or press again to remove it.
• To star a whole folder, hover it in the sidebar and click its star.
• Click Favorites at the top of the sidebar to search only your favorites. Expand it to pick one starred folder.
• Right-click a starred folder and choose Rename to give it your own name.
• You can unstar one sound in a starred folder and keep the rest.

Folders in the sidebar

• Shift-click or Ctrl-click folders to search several at once.
• Right-click a folder and choose Exclude from search to leave it out of the results. An orange chip under the search box names it.
• To bring it back, click × on the chip, or right-click the folder and choose Include again.
• Ctrl+Shift+E excludes the folders you are searching in.
• Exclusions end when you close Arc Search. To hide a library for longer, click Disable in the library menu.

Filters

Click Filters beside the search box to filter by:

• Sample rate: a preset from 44.1k to 192k, or a minimum and maximum in kHz.
• Channels: Mono, Stereo, Multichannel (3 or more), or an exact count.
• Duration: a minimum and maximum in minutes and seconds.

Each filter adds a chip under the search box. Click × on a chip to remove that filter. Clear filters or Ctrl+Shift+X removes them all.

Back and Forward

The arrow buttons at the top of the window go back and forward through your recent searches. Ctrl+[ and Ctrl+] do the same.

Selecting several sounds

• Ctrl-click result rows to add or remove them. Shift-click selects a range. Shift+↑/Shift+↓ extend the selection.
• Drag, Ctrl+C, or Ctrl+Enter sends all the selected sounds as whole files, without the region.
• Click a single row to go back to one sound.

Browsing results

• Ctrl+E finds sounds similar to the highlighted result.
• The number beside the search box sets how many results you get: 50, 100, 200, or 500. Load More at the end of the list, or Ctrl+Shift+↓, adds more.
• Hold Ctrl+Space to hear the highlighted row without changing the sound in the preview.
• Shift+Space plays or pauses the sound in the preview.

Waveform and rows

• Link pitch & rate in the preview bar makes pitch change with speed. P turns it on and off.
• + and - zoom the waveform, and Z shows the whole file. You can also pinch or Ctrl-scroll over the waveform.
• N scales the waveform drawing to full height.
• Ctrl++ and Ctrl+- make the result rows larger or smaller. You can also pinch or Ctrl-scroll over the list.

Updates

With a license activated, Arc Search checks for updates at startup and opens Software Update when one is available. Check the license agreement box and click Download update. When the download finishes, click Restart & install.

Click Later to install another time. While an update is waiting, the download button at the top of the window shows an orange dot. Click the button to open the update or to check for one. The evaluation does not check for updates.

Your index, favorites, library list, and hardware settings live in one folder that you can copy to a new PC without re-indexing. Settings in the Preferences panel are not in that folder, so set them again on the new PC.

Before you start, install the same version of Arc Search on the new PC without completing first-run setup. On the old PC, sign out under License in Preferences. If you no longer have the old PC, release it at arcantus.io/license/release/.

1. On the old PC, open File Explorer and paste %APPDATA%\io.arcantus.arc-search into the address bar.
2. Copy that folder to the same location on the new PC (C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\io.arcantus.arc-search), except the license folder. The new PC gets its own when you activate. You can also skip the cache folder, which Arc rebuilds (keep cache\regions if a DAW session you are moving uses regions dragged out of Arc), and sidecar.pid.d, sidecar.pid, and .ingest_in_progress if present.
3. Reconnect your sound libraries at the same paths as before. Map network drives to the same drive letter, mount UNC paths at the same address, and keep local libraries at the same folder path. If you copy libraries, use a method that preserves file timestamps. File Explorer and robocopy do. Cloud sync (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive) often does not, and changed timestamps make the next scan re-index those files.
4. Launch Arc Search and activate your license key. Your libraries, search, and favorites work right away from the copied index.
5. Click Reindex once in the library menu. With timestamps preserved, it checks the library without a full re-index.

Copying the folder does not work between Windows and macOS. A move between them means re-indexing on the new machine.

A file plays in Explorer but didn't index.

Arc Search indexes WAV, AIFF/AIF, FLAC, MP3, M4A, OGG, and Opus. It skips other formats, including AAC and WMA. M4A also needs ffmpeg installed and on your PATH. Without it, M4A files are counted as failed.

Indexing a network library is slow.

The first pass is limited by your network connection, whatever your GPU, so check that first. Rescans are much faster.

Full Data Wipe and Reset.

First sign out under License in Preferences and keep your license key. Then close Arc Search and delete %APPDATA%\io.arcantus.arc-search\. This removes the index, library list, hardware settings, and license key, but not your audio. The next launch shows the license screen, then first-run setup.

Something missed or feels broken? Email hello at arcantus.io or join our Discord: https://discord.gg/huj9NhtYS