Knowledge Base Article: Searching

M-Files offers powerful search capabilities that allow you to find any document or object in your vault quickly. You can use quick search for simple searches or advanced search filters for more specific criteria.

Quick Search

The search bar at the top of the M-Files Desktop interface provides quick search functionality:

• Type your search term in the search bar
• Press Enter or click the search icon
• M-Files searches across document content, titles, and metadata

Search Filters

For more specific searches, use the Filters tab on the right pane:

• Click the Filters tab to open the advanced search options
• Add specific search criteria such as object type, class, author, date ranges, and property values
• Combine multiple filters to narrow down your results
• Use the View setting to search within a specific view only, or search across the entire vault

Tip: You can save frequently used searches as views. For information on creating views, see Creating a View.

Search Results

Search results are displayed in the listing area. You can:

• Click on any result to see its metadata in the Metadata tab
• Preview documents in the Preview tab
• Sort and filter results further using the listing area column headers

Searching Across All Versions

By default, searches return the latest version of each object. If you need to search across all versions:

• In the view filter settings, enable the option to search all versions
• Only the newest version meeting the criteria will be displayed

Note: If the option Show latest version is on, M-Files will show the newest version of each returned object instead of showing the old version that matched the search conditions.

Full-Text Search

M-Files includes full-text search that indexes the content of documents. This allows you to find documents containing specific words or phrases within the document body, not just the metadata.