Use Windows Search

Quick reference

• 00:04 We use search in Windows 11 whenever we want to find files, folders,
• 00:09 people, or applications on our PC.
• 00:11 And there's a couple of different ways that we can search in Windows.
• 00:15 We can use the Windows Search or we can search from within File Explorer.
• 00:21 So let's take a look at both of these utilities.
• 00:23 Now Windows Search is one of those things that you're going to find on the taskbar,
• 00:28 and it's this magnifying glass icon just here.
• 00:31 So if we click it, it's going to pop open this search window.
• 00:35 What I can see on the left-hand side is just a list of recent applications that
• 00:40 I've searched for.
• 00:41 And then on the right-hand side,
• 00:42 we just have some interesting widget type things from Microsoft.
• 00:46 So this is fairly straightforward.
• 00:47 If we're looking for something in particular on our PC,
• 00:51 we can simply type a keyword into the search bar at the top.
• 00:55 So if I'm looking for an application, so I can type in Excel for example,
• 00:59 notice that I don't have to press Return, it's going to just run that search for me.
• 01:05 And it's going to show me the best matched item at the top of the list,
• 01:08 which in this case is the actual application, Excel.
• 01:12 Also notice though I have another section called Search the Web.
• 01:16 And it's given me some search terms related to Excel that I could possibly
• 01:20 search on the Internet for.
• 01:22 So if I'm interested in finding out more about Excel online,
• 01:26 I can click on this link, and it's going to run a search in Bing.
• 01:30 Also notice if we scroll down, it says Documents at the bottom.
• 01:34 So if I click on this, I can see that it's also found a number of documents that I
• 01:38 have stored on my PC that contain the word Excel in the title.
• 01:43 And notice because I clicked on Documents, it's now switched me to the Documents tab.
• 01:48 So these buttons up here allow you to refine your search results.
• 01:52 If I'm just looking for apps, I can click on Apps and it's only going to show me
• 01:57 Excel or I can just see websites, alternatively I can see documents.
• 02:02 And then underneath the More drop down,
• 02:04 we have other ways that we can refine our search list.
• 02:07 So maybe I'm only interested in folders.
• 02:09 And you can see here,
• 02:10 I don't have any folders on my PC that have Excel in the title.
• 02:15 Now also don't forget from this window we can click on the three dots and
• 02:18 we have some search settings.
• 02:21 So we can jump in here and we can modify our search permissions.
• 02:24 We can change things in here like SafeSearch.
• 02:28 Do we want to filter out any adult images and videos from our search results?
• 02:32 So it's definitely worth having a little browse through here and
• 02:36 changing your settings accordingly.
• 02:39 Now what about if I want to search for something else?
• 02:42 What about if I type in pptx?
• 02:44 Well, that's the extension for PowerPoint files.
• 02:46 So in this case, I'm going to click on the Documents link at the top and
• 02:51 it's going to show me all of the PowerPoint presentations that I have
• 02:55 stored on this PC.
• 02:57 What about if I search for the word Turkey?
• 03:01 Well this time, it's found a folder that I have named Turkey.
• 03:04 And I can see some information about that folder on the right-hand side.
• 03:09 And I can even open the folder location directly from within this search window.
• 03:14 So the search is pretty comprehensive and very simple to use.
• 03:19 Now aside from using the Windows Search to find different items on your PC,
• 03:23 we can also run searches from within File Explorer.
• 03:27 So let's bring up File Explorer, Windows key E, and
• 03:31 I'm going to choose a folder to search in.
• 03:34 So let's click on the Documents folder on This PC.
• 03:39 Now notice in the top corner, we have a Search Documents area.
• 03:43 So it's only going to search the folder that I'm currently clicked on.
• 03:47 If I wanted to perform a wider search, I could click on This PC which is going to
• 03:52 search through every single folder that I have underneath here.
• 03:55 Now I'm going to refine it to documents, I'm going to click in here, and
• 03:59 I'm going to search for everything with the word training in it.
• 04:04 Now you can see it's brought up a list below.
• 04:06 But if I want to see this in the main window,
• 04:09 I can press Enter to run that search, and it's pulling me back all of the files that
• 04:13 it's found in the Documents folder that contain the word training.
• 04:16 And if I don't like the way that I'm viewing these,
• 04:19 I can change the view here and I'm going to switch to the Details view.
• 04:23 So you can see all of those training documents that we created earlier on in
• 04:27 the course along with that Zip file that we also created.
• 04:31 Now whilst I'm still in my search results, notice in the menu,
• 04:35 we do have some additional search options.
• 04:38 So I can choose to run this search for all the subfolders, for
• 04:41 just the current folder, and I can then refine it down to search for
• 04:45 specific things related to date.
• 04:48 So maybe I'm only interested in files created yesterday or today, or
• 04:52 maybe I'm only interested in certain types of file.
• 04:56 I can search by size or see just the zipped or compressed folders.
• 05:02 So don't forget about your search options up there which are going to allow you to
• 05:06 refine your search results.
• 05:07 So let's choose one of these, let's go to Date Modified, and
• 05:11 I'm going to say Yesterday.
• 05:12 Well, that is pretty much everything.
• 05:15 Let's do this again, and let's just search for files of a certain type.
• 05:20 So I'm going to say Picture Files, and
• 05:23 it's just going to show me the one that saved as a BMP file.
• 05:28 Now notice as I'm changing these search terms,
• 05:30 what's happening in this search bar just here.
• 05:33 If I drag this out so we can see it a little bit clearer.
• 05:37 You can see it's searching for the keyword training, and
• 05:41 then it has a little field in here datemodified:yesterday kind:picture.
• 05:46 So we can actually use these search terms in order to run a search.
• 05:51 So let's close this down and backspace to remove that search item.
• 05:56 What about if I want to find all documents where I'm the author?
• 06:01 Well, I could type in author: and then type my name.
• 06:07 If I hit Enter, it's going to return all of those files.
• 06:10 What about if I want to return files of a specific type?
• 06:13 Well, I can type in type: and then maybe I want xlsx files.
• 06:20 Let's run that search, and
• 06:22 it's just going to show me the Excel files in this folder.
• 06:26 What about if I want to find all files that are reasonably large in size?
• 06:32 Well, once again, I can type in size: and then I could choose large and hit Enter.
• 06:39 So now it's showing me all of the files that I have within Documents that
• 06:44 are large.
• 06:46 And I can see that a lot of these are the video files that I've created for
• 06:49 this course.
• 06:51 If I click the Search options, it's showing me just the ones that were created
• 06:55 yesterday, and it's searching in all subfolders.
• 06:59 If I choose Current Folder, it's not going to find anything because
• 07:03 there's nothing that I created yesterday that was particularly large.
• 07:07 A lot of the files that we created didn't really have anything in them.
• 07:10 But hopefully that demonstrates how you can type your search commands into that
• 07:15 search bar as well as using these drop down search options in File Explorer.

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