Simple Tricks To Find Anything On Your Computer Using Windows Search

Most of the articles I write on this blog are inspired by an action(s) I performed or tried to perform. Whenever any of them works, I immediately sell the idea to you by publishing it. This morning, I tried using the Windows built-in desktop search tool to search for some hidden files on my computer, but to my surprise none was coming up and I needed to do a total clean up on my computer hard disk. If you had faced this challenge before, I have discovered some working tricks to help you find just about anything on your computer using Windows search tool.

By default, the Windows Desktop Search (WDS) does not predict your search queries in advance, however, it can help you find relevant documents, e-mails, programs and other files almost as fast as you can type characters in the search box.

Where can I find Windows Search on my Computer?

There are couple of places on your computer where you can find the Windows search tool, they include:

1. The Windows Start Menu, 
2. Windows Explorer (for shortcut press the Windows key + F button)

When using Option 1, it offers you hints as you type and can help narrow your search down to complex search queries with knowing the exact syntax.Option 2 on the other hand opens only a standalone search window where you perform a search but with no direct hint. So if you ask me, I thinkOption 1 is the most preferred.

Windows Desktop Search Tips and Tricks

Now let's go to the main thing! Using some keyword tricks or operators (the ones you will see below) on Windows Search tool, you can easily get some hidden files on your computer discovered within seconds. Let's see some real-world examples:

Search Trick #1: Finding documents that were created or modified "at Anytime"

By "at Anytime" I mean documents you created today, yesterday, last week, this week, this month, last month, last year or even long long time ago. Type the following in your Windows Search box to search files or documents:

• ext:doc date:this week {for other file types, replace doc with xls, ppt, etc. }
• date:13-09-2010..24-09-2010 {this operator helps find files added /modified in this date range}
• kind:pictures date:>23-09-2010 {this operator helps you find all photographs that were captured after this day}

Search Trick #2: Finding Presentation Files (ppt) that contains a particular word

If you had at one time created a power-point file or a presentation, you can find these files easily with a designated keyword or operator if you know a particular word on the file.

• ext:ppt marketing {this operator helps you search for the word “marketing” in file names as well the content of documents}The word "marketing" can be any word depending on what you are searching.
• ext:ppt filename:marketing {this operator helps you search only file names, without you looking inside he content of documents}

Search Trick #3: Finding files that are taking lot of space on your computer.

This was the main thing that caused me to write this post. I love watching movies a lot (brilliant ones) which is why I copy movies most times to my computer. Most times I forget to delete the movies after a long time. Funny enough these video files are nothing below 600MB larger enough to occupy precious space on my hard disk. The trick or operator to use here is "gigantic" which goes for size and then "video" for file type or kind.

• size:gigantic kind:video {this operator helps you find large video files like mp4, mov, wmv, avi, etc.}
• size:>500MB {this operator helps you find all files that are larger than.5 GB}
• size:500MB..800Mb {this operator helps you find files that are in this particular size range}
• size:empty {this operator helps you find all the files that are 0 KB in size}

Search Trick #4: Finding files within a specific folder

You can equally run a search of specific folders using Windows Desktop Search. By default, WDS will help you find files across all folders that have been added to the search index. Most times, your search results can be cluttered due to this, to find the desired folders use the following word operator examples:

• todo folder:documents {this operator helps you search your "My Documents" folders}
• folder:desktop ext:pdf date:today {this operator helps you find PDF documents that you saved today}You can equally change "today" to yesterday, this month, last week etc.
• adobe setup.ini folder:c:\program files {search a file in Adobe’s installation folders}

Before you go, you might want to read some of the Most Important Windows XP Shortcuts. So far, I hope these tricks were of help to you? Let me know how the search goes when you implement any of them in comments...