How to Search for Files and Folders in Windows 10
It always comes handy to just type in the name or a keyword of the file / folder you’re looking for into the search bar, and it immediately populates the results matching your search query which is when you make a click to get to the file, this was the case in Windows 8 and prior versions. Now let’s talk about 10, many users new to Windows 10 are a bit confused with Cortana and the search features because it is different, the layout has changed and better designed not just for search, but entirely to ease usability and comes packed with many features. This has all been done, keeping in view that more and more devices, computers, tablets and phones are shifting towards touch screen layouts. Some users may not find it easy; and i’d not push them to learn it because Windows 7/8 will still continue for a couple of years and they can stick to it before adapting to this change. A bit off topic, let’s come back to Windows 10 search, once you get to know it in and out of it, it’ll be extremely helpful and you’ll start liking it.
Although, conventional methods of searching for a file or folder is still possible but, Cortana is so powerful that you won’t need to look back to the older ones. Cortana doesn’t just provide the search results from the hard drive instead; it can search over the internet for the relative search terms and provide the best results possible. Also another prominent and probably, the most powerful feature of Cortana, is its natural language recognition support along with the ability to listen to the users’ vocal search queries.
Search for a File, folder or Application in Windows 10 using Cortana:
Searching for files, folder and applications using Cortana is quite easy. You can follow along this guide for further information.
To search for a file inside Windows 10, you can use the neat search utility i.e. Cortana. It indexes that file and provides the relevant results. To search for a specific file, click on the Cortana search area at the bottom left of your Windows. Type the file name inside the search field or you can use voice command by clicking the tiny mic icon on the right. In this case, I will be searching for a folder “juan” resided on my hard drive.
After you got your desired result, you can open the file or folder right away. If you want to find the location of that file, you can definitely do that by right-clicking on the file or folder and select Open file location.
If you can’t find a file or folder inside the search results using Cortana, you can click on My Stuff to get more filters for search results. In my case, I can’t find a folder called “Shows”. So, I will click on My Stuff to open the advance menu.
Inside the advance search menu, you can use the filters to modify your search. When you scroll down, you will find the exact search match as I got in my case.
