▷ How to search for files in windows 10 in an advanced way

If you thought you knew everything about how to search for files in Windows 10, it is possible that in this article you will get an interesting surprise. Today we will see how to search for files in Windows in an advanced way by using commands and logical operators.

Index of contents

Windows not only allows us to perform simple searches by typing the name of the folder or file that we want to find. It also provides us with a series of advanced search tools both graphically and through the use of commands in the search bar itself.

How to search for files in Windows 10

The first thing we should know is how and where to look for our files. This may be somewhat trivial, but some clarifications should be made.

To search we will only have to open the file explorer and go to the upper right part of the exploration window. We will identify this search box because inside it says " Search in ”

We must take into account some things:

• The search engine will act within the folder where we are located and in the subfolders that it contains. If we are located in " This team " the search engine will cover all our team

Advanced search options in Windows 10

If we click on the search bar, at the top a new tab will open with different options to perform an advanced search.

From this options bar we can carry out an advanced search of our files thanks to the different options that we will have. We are going to list the different options we have and how we can use them both from the toolbar and by writing it ourselves.

Boolean operators

These operators are the most basic for use in search, but they also allow us to remove many results that we do not want. Let's see what they are

• AND: this operator corresponds to “Y”. Using it we will search for files that contain all the words that we put. Furthermore, it is the default function of the search engine. For example, “red AND car”. Search for a file that contains those two words in its title. But if we put a red car, it will do the same search. NOT: in this case what we will do is omit a certain word in the search. For example, "car NOT red" It will search for files that contain the word car but that do not contain the word red OR: with this operator we will search for files that contain one or the other word. For example, "red OR car", search for files containing one of these two words.

Advanced search commands

We can also search for files in Windows 10 applying certain commands. Some of them we have in the search toolbar and another we must know the specific command.

To use the command we must write it in the following way:

:

For example Size: Large

We can chain all the commands we want, each separated by a space. Let's see which are:

• folder: we use it to specify the folder where we want it to search for file files: we use it to search only by the file name class: We use it to define what type of file we want to search for. When we write it, a drop-down list will appear with all your options. ext: we use it to search only certain size extensions: we use it to search files of a certain size. When we write it, a drop-down list will appear with all your options. name: Logically searches for a file with the name that we specify path to the folder: we use it to specify a certain rue where we want to find date: We use it to search for files with a certain date of creation or modification. A drop-down list will appear with all your options. modified: same operation as the previous command, but only searches by created modification date: same as the previous ones, but they take into account the creation date

Specific Commands for Advanced Search

In addition to the general filters proposed in the previous section, we also have filters that can be used for certain files. It is the example of the metadata of the images or audio files.

The way to use them is exactly the same as with the previous ones

Images:

• Width: Search images with a certain width. high: search images with a certain height orientation: search images with a certain orientation, in case the camera has saved this data

songs:

• artist: search for the artist in question genre: search for songs of a certain genre track: search according to the number of the track, whenever this information is available album: search for a song for a certain album

songs and videos:

• duration: searches for both video and audio tracks with a certain duration year: searches for files that have information about the year of creation

These are the options that we have to search for files in Windows 10 in an advanced way.

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Did you know you could search for files using these search filters? If you know of any other way to do this or the information is useful, leave us your comments below.