How do I search a folder WITH ITS SUBFOLDERS in Windows7 please?

when I run a search in Windows 7, only one folder at a time is searched. How do I broaden a search to a folder and all of its subfolders? Vista did that automatically; Windows 7 does not seem to do so.

I had the same prob & none of the answers on this page helped. I mucked around a bit & ticked a box in the search options folder Called «Don’t use the index when searching in file folders for system files» Problem fixed. although the title of the tick box has nothing to do with searching sub folders, whenever it’s not ticked I can’t search any subfolders.

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Ok here is the scoop. If you are searching in a folder selected from underneath the «Libraries» folder (Documents, Videos, Music, Pictures, Etc.) it does not search subfolders. I do not know why, but if you go to your «C:\Users\’username'» and open the needed folder (or even just in your UN folder), it will search subfolders. I think it is either a glitch, or because Libraries is just a phantom name for a grouping, the search doesnt work. You have to be directly in the folder, or the folder directly above it, not in a windows «cloud» version of it like the ones in Libraries.

Open Windows Explorer.

Select Organize / Folder and Search options.

Select the Search Tab.

In the How to search section, select the Include subfolders in search results when searching in file folders option.

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4 Ways To Find Large Files In Windows 10

Free up space quickly by deleting them

If you quickly want to free-up memory space on your Windows machine, the best way to do that is to find large files on your Windows 10 PC and get rid of them if they’re no longer useful. The question though is how do you go about searching for large files on your computer?

Windows provides you with multiple ways to find all the large files that are stored in your drives. Either you can use the built-in tools on your machine to look for these files or you can grab a third-party app that will do the task for you. Either way, you’ll find the files that occupy a significant portion of your memory space.

Once such files are found, it’s then up to you what you want to do with them. If deleting them permanently isn’t something you’d like to do straightaway, you can move them over to a cloud storage or to an external hard drive.

Also, be sure to check out our YouTube video from our sister site Online Tech Tips where we go through some of the options mentioned below in this article.

Find Large Files In Windows 10 Using File Explorer

File Explorer comes with a lot of hidden features to let you organize, sort, and find files on your computer. One of its abilities is to help you find files that are of specific size on your computer. Using this feature, you can locate those memory-hogging files and get them removed from your PC.

Before you do that, though, you’ll need to first enable the hidden files option. This is to ensure that Explorer looks for large hidden files as well in addition to searching for the normal files.

However, be cautious while dealing with the hidden files. Most of the time, these are system and app related files which, if you delete, will cause your apps to malfunction and even lead your entire system to crash. Before you delete anything, just make sure you know what it is and you’ll be fine.

Open the Start Menu and search for Show hidden and click on Show hidden files and folders.

When the dialog box opens, click on the View tab at the top. You’ll see various File Explorer options that you can modify.

Find the option that says Show hidden files, folders, and drives and put a checkmark in it. Then click on the OK button to save your changes.

Double-click on This PC on your desktop to launch File Explorer. When the utility launches, click on the search box given at the top-right corner.

A new menu item will be added to the top of your screen. Click on the newly added item that says Search to view further options.

Select the Size option and then select an appropriate option from the list. It’ll let you find large files available on your PC.

If what you consider as a large file isn’t available in the default menu, type in size:>1GB (replace 1GB with your size) in the search box and hit Enter. It’ll only look for the files that are larger than your specified size.

When the search results appear, right-click anywhere blank and select Sort by followed by Size and Descending. This’ll ensure the largest file is shown at the top of the results.

Search For Large Files In Windows 10 With Command Prompt

If you’re more of a geeky person, you can use the Command Prompt utility to retrieve a list of all the files larger than a specified size value. The files list can be exported to a text file for you to then actually find those files on your machine.

Press Windows + R, type in cmd, and hit Enter to launch the utility.

When it launches, type in the following command and hit Enter. It’ll find all the files that are larger than 1GB in size. You can modify the value in the command so it finds files that you think are large.

forfiles /S /M * /C “cmd /c if @fsize GEQ 1073741824 echo @path > largefiles.txt

Open the newly created largefiles.txt file and it’ll have a list of all the large files sitting on your computer.

Use Largest Files Finder To Find Large Files On Windows 10

File Explorer and Command Prompt aren’t the only tools to find large files on your Windows 10 computer. There are a few third-party apps as well that can help you find such files.

Largest Files Finder is one of those apps that helps you find the top 100 largest files on your computer. It claims to be only taking a minute to scan drives sized upto 200GB. Also, it doesn’t require any installation and works straight out of the box.

• Download and launch the app on your computer.
• Soon as it launches, it automatically starts searching for large files on your computer. When it’s done, you can review the results for yourself.

If you want to delete any files from the search results, you can do so with ease from within the app. Simply right-click on any of the files and select Delete.

Find Largest Files On Windows 10 With TreeSize Free

TreeSize Free has been around for quite a long time and it helps you find space hogging files on your Windows computers. It requires a small installation but then it works like a charm.

• Download, install, and launch the app on your computer. Make sure to run it with admin rights so it can search the folders that it can’t otherwise.
• You’ll see a tree of your folders along with the space they occupy on your screen. You can double-click on any folder to view its subfolders and their sizes.

You can then sort the directories by the Size column so that the largest files are always shown at the top.

It has a few customizable options as well should you want to use them. Feel free to play around with any options you think will make it easier to find large files on your computer.

Mahesh has been obsessed with technology since he got his first gadget a decade or so ago. Over the last few years, he’s written a number of tech articles on various online publications including but not limited to MakeTechEasier and Android AppStorm. Read Mahesh’s Full Bio

Windows explorer find folder

This forum has migrated to Microsoft Q&A. Visit Microsoft Q&A to post new questions.

Answered by:

Question

• Moved by Dan Stolts ITProGuru Microsoft employee Monday, February 1, 2016 5:19 PM Not in the proper forum

Answers

I cannot find the searches in windows 10. Where do I locate it?

Open File Explorer and click in the Search box, Search Tools will appear at the top of the Window which allows the choosing of a Type, a Size, Date Modified, Other Properties and Advanced search.

In File Explorer Options > Search Tab, the search options can be changed, e.g. Find partial matches.

Alternatively, type the search criteria into the box in the top right of the screen and press Enter.

Example searches are:

1. A minimum file size, simply type ‘size:>30,000KB’ (not the quotes) into the Search box and press Enter. A size range search would be size:750MB..2GB. A specific file type and size range search could be *.iso size:2GB..4GB or *.mp3 size:1MB..4MB

2. type:=.pdf or type:=.doc will display specific file types.

3. filename:x will display files using a partial filename. x represents the partial filename you want to search for.

4. kind:video, kind:music or kind:pictures will find all the videos, music or pictures.

Ninety-nine per cent of politicians give the rest a bad name!

• Marked as answer by Dan Stolts ITProGuru Microsoft employee Monday, February 1, 2016 4:11 PM

Click start button and start typing.

you could also open file explorer [Start+E] then in the upper right corner there is a search box.

if you select in the left pane where you want to search and select your computer, it will search everywhere.

Dan Stolts (ITProGuru)

• Marked as answer by Dan Stolts ITProGuru Microsoft employee Monday, February 1, 2016 4:11 PM

All replies

I cannot find the searches in windows 10. Where do I locate it?

Open File Explorer and click in the Search box, Search Tools will appear at the top of the Window which allows the choosing of a Type, a Size, Date Modified, Other Properties and Advanced search.

In File Explorer Options > Search Tab, the search options can be changed, e.g. Find partial matches.

Alternatively, type the search criteria into the box in the top right of the screen and press Enter.

Example searches are:

1. A minimum file size, simply type ‘size:>30,000KB’ (not the quotes) into the Search box and press Enter. A size range search would be size:750MB..2GB. A specific file type and size range search could be *.iso size:2GB..4GB or *.mp3 size:1MB..4MB

2. type:=.pdf or type:=.doc will display specific file types.

3. filename:x will display files using a partial filename. x represents the partial filename you want to search for.

4. kind:video, kind:music or kind:pictures will find all the videos, music or pictures.

Ninety-nine per cent of politicians give the rest a bad name!

• Marked as answer by Dan Stolts ITProGuru Microsoft employee Monday, February 1, 2016 4:11 PM

Click start button and start typing.

you could also open file explorer [Start+E] then in the upper right corner there is a search box.

if you select in the left pane where you want to search and select your computer, it will search everywhere.

Dan Stolts (ITProGuru)

• Marked as answer by Dan Stolts ITProGuru Microsoft employee Monday, February 1, 2016 4:11 PM

I cannot find the searches in windows 10. Where do I locate it?

If you mean Saved Searches IMO they are not as obvious any more. I think I used to see them in Links but that has been replaced by Quick access. But Links was the implementation of Favorites so where has it gone? Ah. I see my Searches below in Libraries. How do we use them from there? So, when I open Searches it says Links? WTH? Ah. Searches is a Library so it can contain more that just Searches; they are below Links (perhaps being sorted alphabetically?) And then if I try to search in there the View changes completely! Smoke and mirrors? YMMV.

Windows 10. Still an Adventure («Twisty passages, all different.»)

Then your syntax could be: name:

=93 kind:folder and if the ones you wanted to find were deeper than the level you were at you would have to have Search subfolders checked AND if none of them were indexed you might have to wait a long time. Much faster to use a command shell. E.g. in a cmd window at that level, enter: dir/ad/b/s *93* I used to do that to race File Explorer’s Search. I usually had enough time left over to figure out how to do the same thing in PowerShell (and at the time I was still learning PowerShell syntax). Now I would probably beat FE with it too:

PS> (LS -Re -Fi *93* -Dir -Fo -Ea «SilentlyContinue»).FullName

I even had time to do it again to get the count:

PS C:\> ((LS -Re -Fi *93* -Dir -Fo -Ea «SilentlyContinue»).FullName).Count
1362

Meanwhile FE is just out of the 900’s. What can it be doing?

Click start and type does NOT search all files. It searches «most relevant on this PC, Web» — whatever that means — but it does not, for example, include «irrelevant» things, like, oh, say, downloads. Unfortunately, it’s another reason why Cortana is just screen clutter.

I know I want a file that I have on my PC, but instead of showing that from the index, it gives me Wikipedia articles and Bing ads. Great.

(Yes, I can choose «Documents» or «Apps», but that apparently means only things in the Document Folders or Installed as Apps, again, skipping «Downloads»).

Windows Server Division, Microsoft Corporation

My issue is that the search box is missing altogether from the top right of the screen on one of my computers. I need it very badly on a production machine that needs to search after doing File —> Open.

It works fine on the other 4 production machines, it is just happening on this one computer..

How can I restore the search box in the upper right?

Thanks in advance

How can I restore the search box in the upper right?

I remember someone posting that symptom during a preview. IIRC the resolution might have been to make sure that the Search service was running. For example, just issue net start wsearch. So, perhaps the simplest solution would be to run the Search troubleshooter (supposedly our all purpose repair tool for anything related to Search).

In File Explorer Options > Search Tab, the search options can be changed, e.g. Find partial matches.

Not true, or perhaps not true anymore. There is no setting for «Find partial matches.» How does one turn that off these days?

And hey, Microsoft: Please prevent the code nerds from changing the UI and common tools. They have no idea how the rest of the world works and what the rest of us need to get our work done.

It takes a long time for file explorer search to display results.

The most effective and efficient method to find folders/files is to use 3rd party software.

Search facilities for Microsoft products have always been a joke. I have no idea why. For instance, I have a folder that contains 257 files of the name-form «EDI-GPC.*». When I enter EDI-GPC.* (with or without quotes), the result is the same — one file that meets the criteria shows up, plus five files that have a random mix of bits and pieces of the criteria. Why in the world is it reasonable for that to happen?

If I open a DOS box and type «dir EDI-GPC.*/od» at the prompt, I will instantly get a complete listing of all 257 files in reverse chronological order.

I am certain that if and when I receive a reply to this from a certified MS guru, I will be bemused because there is absolutely no logical, or reasonable explanation for it. I know I will receive (if anything) some convoluted nonsense about re-indexing, and/or logical patterns and such, and Lord-knows-what else, but that will fall far short of explaining why dumb old DOS can easily, and instantly, produce correct results for the simplest of queries, that Windows 10 is unable to even begin to produce.