Search Instructions for a Complete Dummy

• filename:– Searches only the file name (not content).
  • Example: filename:"project report" finds files with that exact name.
• kind:– Filters by broad category (e.g., document, picture, music).
  • Example: kind:document or kind: picture.
• ext: or type:– Searches for a specific file extension.
  • Example: ext:.pdf or type:docx.
• content:– Searches for a specific word or phrase inside the file.
  • Example: content:"meeting notes".
• size:– Filters by file size using keywords or operators.
  • Example: size:>100MB or size:huge.
• datemodified:– Filters by when the file was last changed.
  • Example: datemodified:today or datemodified:last week.

• AND / OR / NOT:Must be capitalized.
  • Example: report NOT draft finds files containing "report" but excludes those with "draft".
• Wildcards ( and ?):*
  • * matches any number of characters (e.g., data*.xlsx finds "data2025.xlsx" and "data_final.xlsx").
  • ? matches a single character (e.g., file?.txt finds "file1.txt" but not "file10.txt").

1. Open File Explorer (Win + E) and navigate to the folder or drive you want to search.
2. Combine filtersfor precision.
   • Example: To find a PDF from last month larger than 5MB with "tax" in the name:
     filename:tax ext:.pdf size:>5MB datemodified:last month.
3. Use Quotes for exact phrases to prevent the search from splitting the words.

allan said:

You might want to suggest he download and install EVERYTHING - it is a free, simple, comprehensive, and FAST (immediate results) search utility that many of us on this site use:

voidtools

www.voidtools.com

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