Saturday, August 5, 2023

Search text inside files - Windows 10 Indexing

 Have you ever encountered a situation where you were unable to find specific content within your files using Windows file explorer? It can be frustrating, especially when you know the text you are searching for exists within a file in the folder. This issue often arises after Microsoft updates, which may revert Windows settings to their default configurations.

To address this inconvenience in the future, I'd like to share a simple solution that enables Windows 10 file explorer to search for text inside files. First, navigate to the Windows search bar and type "indexing." Select the "Indexing Options" from the search results. This will open the Indexing Options window.

Once you're in the Indexing Options, click on the "Advanced Options" button. Within this window, you'll find the "File Types" tab. Here, you can see a list of file extensions that are currently included in the search indexing process. To enable text search within files of specific extensions, find the extensions you want to include.

For each extension, modify the radio button labeled "How should this file be indexed" to the "Index Properties and File Contents" option. This change will ensure that the content within those files is indexed and becomes searchable using the Windows file explorer.

By following these steps, you can enhance your Windows file explorer's functionality, enabling it to search for text inside various files efficiently and saving you time and frustration when locating specific information in the future.


Richard