Do you have a lot of files in Google Drive & are facing problems in finding a particular file? Here are some Google Drive search tips and tricks that will help you.
Google Drive is a popular cloud storage that is powered by the web giant Google. Behind the popularity, there are a couple of reasons, like you do not have to create any other account for using Google Drive. If you have a Gmail account, you can use Google Drive right away. 15GB of free storage is another reason why Google Drive is so popular.
If you have been using Google Drive for a long time, you may have stored a lot of files, created loads of folders, etc. Now, if you are facing any problems in finding any particular file or organizing files accordingly, here are some search conditions. You can utilize these search terms or filters to find out something that you are looking for.
Google Drive Search Tips and Tricks
1] Find the exact match
This is something like a Google search. We often use quotation marks (“”) to find something particular. The same thing can be used in Google Drive as well. You can use quotation marks to filter the files with a particular name. Let’s assume that you have a file name called All about Microsoft Windows, and you remember that. Therefore, you can search for those files with the following search terms,
“All about Microsoft Windows”
Do not remove the quotation mark. Otherwise, this filter will not work. If you have more than one file with the same name but in different folders, you will get them all in the search results.
2] Find documents with at least one word
Suppose you have some files with single-word unique names and you do not remember the spelling of those files. Now, if you want to find those files, you can use OR filter. OR filter will help you to find those files that have at least one of the words you have entered in the search box. In such situations, you can use OR filter like this,
Word1 OR word2
Do not remove the OR from the search terms, and do not forget to replace word1 and word2 with your own search terms.
3] Exclude a word
Suppose you have some files with names like “Microsoft Windows”, “Windows Phone”, etc. Now, you want to get all those files with “Microsoft Windows” in the title but not “Phone”. You can use minus sign to exclude any word that you do not want to get as search result. The search term looks like this,
Microsoft windows –phone
Those aforementioned search term will show all the results that have Microsoft Windows in the title. But, will exclude “Phone” in the search result.
4] Find others’ files
Sometimes, we share files with friends, and friends share their files with us. No matter who shares the files, the owner of the file should always be one person. If your friends have shared a lot of files with you and now you are not getting the exact file that you are looking for, you can use owner and from search terms. They will help you to filter files by the owner and the main person who shared the file with you.
Microsoft owner:abc@domain.com
This will help you to find all those files that have “Microsoft” in the name and are owned by “abc@domain.com”.
Microsoft from:abc@domain.com
This term will let you find all files those are having “Microsoft” in the title and are shared by “abc@domain.com”.
5] Find your shared files
This is the exact opposite of the aforementioned search terms. This time, you can use this filter to find files that are owned and shared by you with someone else. Sometimes, we need to find files that are shared by us with a particular person. At this time, you can use TO search term. It looks like this.
Microsoft to:abc@domain.com
This above-mentioned search term will help you to find files that have “Microsoft” in the title and you shared with “abc@domain.com”.
6] Find star marked items
Like Gmail, we use a star to mark more important files in Google Drive. When you search for anything in Google Drive, it captures files from any location. Therefore, if you want to limit the search to Star folder only, you can use this search term. It will execute the search within the Starred folder. It looks like this.
Microsoft is:starred
It will help you to find all files that are starred and have “Microsoft” in the title. You can certainly use any term in place of “Microsoft”.
7] Find files in Trash folder
As usual, the Trash folder holds all the deleted files of Google Drive. If you have deleted a lot of files recently but you want to restore some of them, you can use search terms. It will assist you to find files in the trash folder right from the main Google Drive window. Like is:starred, you can use is:trashed term to execute the search within the Trash folder. For example,
Microsoft is:trashed
Like the abovementioned term, it will filter all files that are in the Trash folder and have “Microsoft” in the title.
8] Before & After command
As the names indicate, these commands will help you to find a file that was edited before or after a particular date. Suppose you want to find files that were edited before/after your birthday or any party or anything else. These commands look like this,
Microsoft before:2022-08-14
It will help you to filter your files that are edited before 14th August 2022 and have “Microsoft” in the title. The same thing can be used with after command.
Microsoft after:2022-08-08
Note: The date format is YYYY-MM-DD.
9] Search by title only
As of now, we have seen all the terms that can show results for a particular word in the title. For instance, if you have searched by “Microsoft”, “Microsoft Windows….”, “Microsoft News…..” etc. will be given in the search result. Sometimes, Google Drive shows results for a particular word that is placed inside the file. But what if you want to search for the title only? This is possible with the help of title filter. You can use this to find a file that has a specific title. It looks like this,
10] Get files that can be opened by a particular app
Generally, Google Drive shows results of all types of files like Word files, Excel, images, and so on. But suppose you want to get files that can be opened by a particular app like Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, etc. This time, you will have to use app filter. For instance, you want to search all the files that can be opened by Google Sheets and have “Microsoft” in the file. You have to enter this term,
Microsoft app:”Google Sheets”
There are many other complex search terms. You can create nested terms like this,
Microsoft to:abc@domain.com before:2022-08-09
It will help you to find files that have Microsoft in the files, shared with abc@domain.com and edited before 9th August 2022.
I hope these search terms for Google Drive will make life easier for you!
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