Exclude "file type" from search

Hi, in file explorer try e.g.
content:doc

to find files containing doc but not files of type doc or docx.

(Note- naturally you need the appropriate ifilters installed for the document types you're interested in to index content, as well as having the relevant folders specified in Indexing Options and content indexing enabled).

Interestingly it's not shown in the Advanced Query Syntax description- perhaps there's a later version.

dalchina said:

Hi, in file explorer try e.g.
content:doc

to find files containing doc but not files of type doc or docx.

Exactly.

To search for files containing string word, simply search for content:word. To search for files containing both strings word and doc, search for content:word AND content:doc.

To search for files where string word is either in file name or file content excluding documents with extension starting with .doc, search for word NOT ext:doc.

Notice that logical operators AND, OR, NOT must be in upper case. If written in lower case, they will be taken as strings you are searching for instead of logical operators. They can be combined, for instance searching for files containing either the string word or the string doc but excluding those files created last year, search for content:word OR content:doc NOT datecreated:2016.

Kari

enso said:

Ah, thank you!

This performed the search I wanted:
content:word AND (ext:doc OR ext:docx)

Is there a web page that lists the limiters ('content', 'ext', and so on)?

How unhelpful for File Explorer help to not have this, or at least not make it easier to find.

ext:doc OR ext:docx is unnecessary, ext:doc already covers all extensions with three or more characters starting with doc.

As David mantioned in post #4, this tutorial although made for Windows 7 is still mostly valid: Search - Find More with Filters and Operators - Windows 7 Help Forums

Kari

I mentioned this above by name, which covers a lot of ground, and commented on the apparent omission and need for something more recent:
Advanced Query Syntax (Windows)

However, I do think that not having an intuitive GUI based search and using something akin to a command line syntax, means using search more fully is restricted to the minority of users. Only if you have an exceptional memory or frequently use such syntax is this readily available to you as a useful tool.