Make the content of Markdown files searchable in Windows

If you use a custom file extension for your Markdown files—like .md, or .markdown, or whatever—instead of .txt, Windows will only index their filename, not their content even though they are still text files. So, any Windows search will completely ignore their content.

It’s silly, but the good news is that it’s easy to change this by telling Windows that your .md or .markdown files are to be treated like standard text files.

1. Press the Windows key and start typing “Indexing” until it suggests “Indexing option”. Open it.
2. A small old looking window appears. Click on Advanced, in the bottom:
3. Another window opens, click its File Types tab to see the list of all the file extensions used on your PC. Scroll this long list until you find your own Markdown file extension (md, in my case):
4. Click your extension once. Then look at the bottom of the window and check Index Properties and File Contents.
5. Click OK.

Done. Windows will need a few moments to rebuild its index but now the content of your Markdown files will be searchable too. Yeah.