Quick search
You can use Quick search to locate file or folder quickly.
Basic Usage with search dialog
There are several search methods in Configuration - Options - Quick search. The following paragraphs is based on "letters - with search dialog". Because you can start search directly in this way, and the dialog can show what you have inputted.
With this option, start typing in file panel will filter the list incrementally, only files or folders match your input will be displayed. File or folder named in Chinese characters will be filtered based on the first letter of spell of the Chinese character, i.e. "pinyin".
Search in Folder Tree
If you open the folder tree by select Show - separate tree - 1 tree, you can locate folder that you visited quickly by quick search. Press shift-tab to focus on the tree, then start type to locate to the first match of folder. Note only folders you visited will be expanded in the tree, so you can only locate folder that you visited before or expanded before. If there are multiple matches, use UP/Down arrow to move between matches. Or you can type the last letter of your input again to jump to next match.
Locate file/folder with Everything Search then open with TC
Everything is a lightning fast search utility specially designed for NTFS volumes. You don't need keep a background service to index your files, while every time when you start Everything it will update file index in seconds. Then you can search file or folder quickly. Everything can search all of your files in NTFS volume, so it's more thorough than quick search which only work in current folder in file panel, or visited folder in Folder Tree. Everything
With some customization you can open folder found in Everything with TC, thus you can search file or folder in Everything, then jump to result folder in TC. Add these lines to Everything.ini in Everything installation folder (replace with your own TC installation path):
open_folder_path_command=$exec("d:\app\wincmd\TOTALCMD.EXE" "$parent(%1)")
open_folder_command=$exec("d:\app\wincmd\TOTALCMD.EXE" "%1")
Now you can double click folder listed in Everything and open it with TC, or right click file, select open path to open the folder contained that file with TC.
You may want to limit only 1 TC instance to avoid above operation opening new TC window. Configuration - Options - Operation - Allow only 1 copy of TC at one time.