Google Drive - Fast and Powerful Tips for Searching your Drive

Search Tools

Good Drive has search features similar to the full Google Search. Additionally, clicking on the down arrow in the search box of Google Drive will open up additional search features.

Clicking on “LEARN MORE” will open up a searchable help menu for drive search.

Searching the Drive

To find files more easily in Drive, you can narrow search results by filtering them.

1. Go to drive.google.com.
2. At the top, type a word or phrase into the search box.
3. To narrow your search, click the Down arrow .
4. Fill out any of the following sections:
• Type: File types such as documents, images, or PDFs.
• Date modified: The date a file was last edited.
• Item name: Searches only for the title of the file.
• Has the words: Searches for words and phrases within documents.
• Owner: The person the file belongs to.
• Shared with: Who can view, comment, or edit the file.
• Located in: Whether the file is in "Trash," or "Starred," for example.
• Follow up: If the file has action items assigned to you, or suggestions in files you own.
5. At the bottom, click Search.

Advanced Searching Options

Quotes - Find documents that contain an exact word or phrase. Example: "match this phrase exactly"

OR - Find files with at least one of the words. Example: tacos OR nachos

Minus sign - Find documents that exclude a particular word. If you want "salsa," but not "dancing"... Example: salsa -dancing

Owner: - Find documents owned or shared by a specific person. Examples: owner:bob@gmail.com      /       from:bob@gmail.com

To: - Find documents you shared with someone. Example: to:bob@gmail.com

Is:starred  - Find items marked with a star.

Is:unorganized owner:me - Find a file when you don’t know the name or location.

Is:trashed - Find items that are trashed.

Type: - Search by the type of document: folder, document, spreadsheet, presentation, PDF, image, video, drawing, form, script, or table. Example: type:spreadsheet

Before & after -  Find items that were edited before or after a certain day. Format the date as YYYY-MM-DD. Examples:    before:2014-05-01  / after:2014-05-01

Title: - Search by title Example: title:Conference 2014

App: - Search for items that can only be opened by a specific app. Example: app:"Google Docs"

Source:domain (Google for work or school) - Search for items that have been shared across your organization’s entire domain, instead of items created by you or your group. Example: To search for files related to domain, use source:domain