There are many ways to find a file. In today’s tutorial, we will tell you how to quickly search files by Date range in Windows 10 and what other more specific filters you can add to find what you need from the file explorer.
How to search files by date in Windows 10 in few steps
You can search for a file on your computer by date using commands with the keyboard, or with your computer mouse. We are going to explain the first method, for both, you must position yourself in the file explorer.
To do this using commands, start typing in the search bar at the top right of the screen: modification date: date1.. date2. This way you can search files by date range. In addition, you can add some Boolean operators (we will explain more about what they are discussed before). You can write a single date too.
The most practical method however is to do it using the mouse. To start, click on the “Search Tools” tab that is located in the part of the screen, and on “Refine”.
This will open the “Modification date” options menu and you will be able to choose between the following values: today, yesterday, this week, this month, last month, etc. You must choose one of them.
If you want to search by a specific date, click on the search field in the upper right corner of the screen. A calendar will open. Search and click on the date you want.
In case you want to choose a date range, press the “Shift” key before clicking on the first date, and keep it pressed until you find and click on the second.
How can I find a file in Windows 10?
If you have a Windows 10 operating system on your computer, you can perform searches based on different parameters, as it uses Microsoft’s Query Syntax technology.
There are Boolean operators that allow you to specify what you want to add or remove in your search. They are:
NOTE: With which you prevent a specific word from being included in your search. You can write it in the command or replace it with “-“.
Find a file that includes one or another term.
- Quotation marks. To join several phrases or keywords in the same order.
- Parenthesis. To match keywords or phrases in any order.
In addition to these, there are specific filters that you have available from the tools tab at the top of the screen. They are used by typing: filter name +: + its value. They are:
- Date. Returns results according to the modification or creation date. You can search by a specific date or by a range of days.
- Modified. It works the same as above but only takes into account the creation date.
- Created. In this case, it only takes into account the creation date of the file.
- Size. You can choose the following values: empty, tiny, small, medium, large, huge, or type the exact size manually in case you know it.
- Class. Search by file type. Example: calendar, image, video, folder, game, contact, document, etc.
- Ext. To search only certain extensions. Example: “ext.:jpg”, will search for images in JPG format.
- Binder. The search is performed within a specific folder.
- Archive. Search is by filename only.
Different types of Filter
There are other types of specific filters by file type that are based on the metadata included in documents and photos and that you can use for your search are the following:
- Slides: presentations with a number of specific sheets.
- Commentary. Word documents that include the comment you quote.
- Artist. For songs that have the artist name you specify.
- Album. Returns results with the album name you wrote.
- Track. Filter songs by track number.
- Gender. It will return results by genre of music.
- Duration. For songs and videos. You can write values like: short, long, medium, very long, or the exact duration in case you know it.
- Year. Valid for movies or songs, search by year they were published.
- Orientation. It is used for photos.
- Width. Please quote the exact width of the image.
- Tall. Please quote the exact height of the image.
As you can see, there are many ways to search for a file in Windows 10.