Problem:
How do I use the advanced features of Windows Search to find specific files?
Solution:
There are lots of uses for this, you may want to find files between certain sizes and of a certain type with a certain date. All of this is possible using Windows Advanced search.
You can use the below operators:
- NOT/- : Both “not” as well as prefixing a dash will tell your search to exclude items that include the following term.
- AND/+ : Both “and” as well as prefixing a plus sign will force your search to only include items that match for both terms.
- “” : Using quotes will force a search to filter for an exact phrase.
Basic Search
“Dusk Till Dawn”
Will find all files with the text Dusk Till Dawn in the filename.
Kind
“backups” AND kind:=document
Will give me all the files called backup and files in a folder called backup that are of the kind – document (ie .xslsx or .docx).
Type
“backups” AND Type:=
Will allow me to select the file type I want to search for
Dates
happy datemodified:
This will give me files called happy modified on a certain date
You can also use the following date related search terms:
date:past month
datemodified:mm/dd/yy..mm/dd/yy
>mm/dd/yy
Size
You can use the following terms with the size parameter:
Empty: 0kb files
Tiny: 0-10kb
Small: 10-100kb
Medium: 100kb-1mb
Large: 1mb-16mb
Huge: 16mb-128mb
Gigantic: larger than 128mb
This will give you all files between 20GB and 30GB in size:
size:>=20GB <=30GB
Here are some other examples of what you can use:
author:(RobC OR JonC)
modified:December..yesterday
type:music bitrate:>=160kbps
