How to find files or folders

How to find files or folders

Document number: 69052

If you don't know where you stored a file, or you can't remember what you called it you can use the Search tool. This tool will help you locate files or folders on any drive, both local (hard drive, floppy, CD etc) and network. You can search by a portion of the name, by date, by text contained in the file, by file type and by size. You can search using just one of these qualities or using some combination of them. Your search will go fastest if you can narrow the scope, for example only searching the c:\user folder and subfolders instead of searching the entire C: drive.

There are a couple different locations where you can access this tool. This document covers only one location, but the interface is the same whether you get there via the Start button, Windows Explorer or My Computer.

Search for files or folders in Windows 2000.

You can search using any combination of location, name, date, type, contents or size.

Click on the Start button, then select Sear ch, then For Files or Folders ... (Or from Windows Explorer click on the Search button).
Select where to search by modifying the box labeled Look in:. This step is critical to the efficiency of the search. Try to limit the scope of your search to the fewest number of folders.

The default scope will be [C:] if you opened from the Start button. If the " Include subfolders" box is checked then all the folders on the C: drive will be searched. If you know that the file is in a particular folder you can prevent searching subfolders (and speed up the search) by clicking on the " Include subfolders" box to uncheck it. If you don't see "Include subfolders" click on Search Options >> then click on Advanced Options.
To reduce the number of folders search change the Look in: box to a subfolder, for example, instead of searching [C:] search C:\User. To change either type the name of the path to the subfolder in the Look in: box, or click on Browse... navigate to the subfolder, then click on OK.
Don't select " My Computer". Selecting "My Computer will cause every drive showing to be searched, including the network drives. That is wasteful of both time and computing resources.

Next, specify the name, or part of the name, for the file or folder you are searching for by typing into the Search for files or folders na med: field. If you don't know even a portion of the name you can leave the field blank. If you leave this field blank you must use at least one of the other fields to narrow your search: Date, Type, Containing text or Size.

If you enter a group of characters Windows will search for any file or folder containing those characters anywhere in the name. For example, if you type "TSO" (leave the quotes out) you might find the files: tso.rul, tsochges.xls, picktso.jpg. Note that the searched for characters can appear anywhere in the file name.
If you want to limit where the characters appear in the file or folder name you can add wildcard characters. For example, if I know my file starts with the characters "TSO" I could type "TSO*" (not including the quotes). The search would then find the files tso.rul and tsochges.xls but not picktso.jpg.

There are two wildcards.

The * substitutes for any number of characters. For example typing ban* would find bandana, bandaid, ban, bans and bank.
The ? substitutes for a single character. For example typing ban? would find ban, bans and bank, but not bandana or bandaid.
A period separates the main part of the file name from the "extension" which usually identifies the file type. You can use wildcards in either or both parts of a file name. For example you want to find all your Excel files you can type *.xls. If you want to find only the Excel files that start with the letter "d" you could type d*.xls. If you want to find all Excel files beginning with "d: (not just spreadsheets) you could type d*.xl? This would locate a toolbar called duplicate.xlb, a macro called done.xlm, and a spreadsheet called do.xls

Consider limiting your search by file date. Click on Date (you may need to click on Search Options >> to see this selection). You can enter a date range, search by a selected number of months prior to the current date, or search by a selected number of days prior to the current date. Selecting to search by "files modified" will result in the broadest search and is the default. Using only "Date" as a criteria is not recommended because of the large number of files opened and modified just in the course of booting and setting up Windows.
If the file type is a "registered file" type (e.g. a file that can be opened into an application just by double-clicking on it in Windows Explorer) you can improve your search by specifying the file type. Click on T ype (you may need to click on Search Options >> to see this selection) then click on the down arrow to get the drop down list of file types. Click on the desired file type to select it.
If you don't have any idea about the file name, or have lots of similarly named files you can search the contents of the files for specified text. Enter text to search for in the Containing text box. Note, however, that searching the contents of the files can increase the search time. You cannot use wildcards in searching contents, and the searches are literal, so spaces matter. The best strategy is to pick an unusual keyword.
If you can make a rough guess about the file size you can narrow your search based on file size. Click on Si ze (you may need to click on Search Options >> to see this selection) then click on the down arrow to select whether you will be looking for files larger than (at least) the specified size, or smaller than (at most) the specified size, then enter the size in KB. For example, if you are searching for an image document that you know is more than 6KB you would specify Size is: at least 6 KB. This will find all files 7KB and larger. It will ignore files 6KB and smaller.
When you have entered all the search terms click on the Search Now button.