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File Search

1 Searching files Web

Files can be searched for, across clouds, in a variety of ways:

  • Exact Phrase: Search for an exact match to a phrase
  • Starts with: Search for the characters that start a phrase ie. abc - will find all files beginning with abc
  • Ends with: Search for the characters that end a phrase ie. xyz.<extension> will find all files ending with xyz
  • All words: Enter multiple words separated by spaces which will be searched for
  • Any word: Enter multiple words and search for occurrences of any
  • By file extension: Search for extension types

All searches occur across all clouds mapped to an account and searches can be saved.

2 Client Tools

Desktop and client tools also offer similar search options. Above are examples of windows and iOS.

Content search is supported with our on-premises cloud appliance with the Apache Lucene search engine. Please contact us for more information.

Search Options

Search input: The input string is first split into search tokens, by its spaces and punctuation characters (which are ignored). Each of these search tokens are queried in Solr using AND operators. How these tokenized search terms are used in the query is dependent on the modifier flags that you have set when running the query. Searches are case insensitive.

Here's a worked example for the modifiers, if we are searching for “a summer holiday”.

  • Match exact word or phrase - This searches for documents containing the exact phrase. If this string is found in the middle of a document, Solr will expect a proceeding space before the “a” and after the “holiday”. If there's a string “a summer holidays” then that will not be flagged as a match.
  • Whole word - Given each of the word tokens “a”, “summer” and “holiday” it would look for documents containing at least one words “a”, “summer” and “holiday”, in any part of the document, regardless of order. So it might flag a document that only contains the word “holiday”. The pseudo query would like like: “a” OR “summer” OR “holiday” So, this could match “I would like a little holiday” (“a” and “holiday” match)
  • Begins with word - Given each of the word tokens, it searches for documents either containing at least one of those words exactly, or where a word starts with either of those terms. The pseudo query looks like: “a*” OR “summer*” OR “holiday”. So, this could match “Where are you going on your holidays?” (“are” and “holidays” match)
  • Ends with word - This is the inverse of Begins with Word. So, it searches for words ending in the tokens. The pseudo query looks like: “*a” OR “*summer” OR “*holiday”. So, this could match “could you find my bra?” (“bra” match)
  • Use wildcards - This is a combination of Ends with and Starts with. The pseudo query looks like: “*a*” OR “*summer*” OR “*holiday*”. So, this could match “could you find my suncream for my summer holidays?” (“suncream”, “summer” and “holidays” match)

If you use multiple modifiers, it becomes an OR between them. Here's some notes on that behaviour:

  • Ticking “Begins with word” and “Ends with word” is just the same as ticking “use wildcards”
  • The modifiers are OR's between each one. So, “Whole word” and “Begins with word” are probably quite useful together.