You can set it to run on startup or as a service so it updates the index in the background.

Try Everything 1.5a - an "alpha" version with many improvements, in development for years but inexplicably hidden away on their website. Never experienced any instability.

https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9787

Wow! Shocked that this is the first I've heard of this given that I've been using Everything for years now. Thanks for the link.

Love everything, but I had no idea there was an update... I'll have to try it right away, thanks!

Uninstall, re-install as a service which may now be default.

Better as a service too because the GUI doesn't need to request admin rights.

You should not be starting it when you want to search. You should open it when you log in, and leave it in the tray. It will do a full index on launch then subscribe to filesystem notifications to keep itself up to date for as long as it’s open.

Do that and it’s alarmingly fast and responsive except for the minute or two right after launch.

It should be starting at boot if you installed it as a service, so the indexing will be done then. After that opening and searching is instant.

Contrasting seemingly all the other responses to this, I use it the same way you do (only opening it when needed) and I'm fine with the delay: even at its slowest rebuilding the index and searching is faster than the in-built windows Search.