How do I add search filters?

When trying to search I click in the search field in my file explorer window. I see "Add a search filter" and a couple options below that "Date Modified" &  "Size" that I can select. How do I add more "clickable" search filters? I can only select those two filters. How do I add more to select?

Google couldn't seem to figure this one out for me and no matter what I tried the 'add a search filter' option was always greyed out. Supposedly W7 would know what I needed for filters based on folder type but then why couldn't I have a dimension filter in a picture library?

Turns out I could. By querying the search box. I thought it might be crazy enough to work and after a bit of poking around I found that it does.

dimensions:>599 x

 as a search parameter will return all images 600px+ wide. I think the colon tells the search that this is an attribute filter as opposed to a text search. The left side is whatever attribute you want to search on. You get <>=(looks like = is default, in other words an exact match) and I assume other operators you might care to experiment with. This would be in fact the actual filter as set by the string on the right. When I say string I mean it literally. I haven't tested enough to make this claim as fact but it looks like it's a mix of the operator, the number value, and then a string weighted against what you would see in Explorer as the value of the attribute. What I mean by this is that 'dimensions:>599 x' will return on width but 'dimensions:>599' (no trailing nbsp and 'x') will return on both height and width. Whatever is a match in the '800 x 600 (for example)' string you would see in Explorer. So in this particular case, searching on image dimensions, ' x' would return on width, and 'x ' would return on height.

Pardon my enthusiasm here but this is frikan brilliant. It boggles my mind that my searches on this matter turned up a lot of deflecting corpspeak and zero mention of this awesome tool. There must be potential here to filter by any attribute in whatever capacity one might need. The 'add' option being greyed out I dunno. I'm on 64 Pro and all I can figure is that it's an unfinished piece that they didn't clean up before release. OR (still unfinished yes) clicking the 'add a filter' shoulda/woulda brought up a dialogue to plug in the discussion above. Too bad, cause it rocks.

No doubt some smart cookie out there will find a way to combine search criteria as well. I poked around a bit with semi-colons and pipes but no luck. However, for example, consider this,

'dimensions:>599 x' returns all images 600px+ width. Re-querying this result set with 'size:>100 kb' filters out everything under 100 kb.

What couldn't you do with this? Every possible attribute attached to any file type looks to be within reach so in theory you couldn't query anything that it couldn't return exactly as you needed. It's all there for you to experiment with so please don't ask me for a quick fix. Get in there and play.

Enjoy.

I Googled a few phrases on this issue and found no definitive answer, but a couple of posts I read did click together and a quick test showed that advanced searches may be possible on every level of file type, attribute, with qualifiers, etc... It baffles me how MS hasn't promoted this and no one seems to know about it from the searches I did. It is absolutely brilliant in its simplicity and it couldn't be any simpler for anyone to figure out how to nail down any particular search criteria available. I found you can add filters in the search box for a folder or library like this,

dimensions:>499 x

This would return all images over 499 px and over wide. Why not 500 and over I'm not sure yet.

What this SEEMS to mean is that there is some sort of mini query logic implemented in the search well beyond the simple capabilities of finding files of 'like' naming. It becomes evident that indeed this IS built-in and it becomes that much more mind-boggling that this huge capability doesn't seem worthy of promotion when you see that queries you are typing into your search box change colors as you experiment. In other words as you try and guess at the syntax of more advanced searches you see the keywords lighting up as you would in a WYSIWIG coding tool.

What I've got so far is that there are at least 4 parts that can go into a 'command line' search. Given the example above:

[dimensions][:][>][499 x]

[dimensions]

Is the attribute name as you would see it at the top of your explorer window. I assume that a search on any one of the over 200 attributes available depending on file type would be possible. As you try different file attibutes you may see different helpers popping up. For instance typing in 'date:' will pop up a date picker.

[:]

This would be the character that triggers the input becoming an attribute search as opposed to a simple like name search.

[>]

This piece is optional. Without it it's an exact search. With it conditional operators look to be possible.

[499 x]

From playing around it first looked like this last bit is a match on the string you would see defining that particular attribute on the file in explorer. However, 'dimensions:>'500 x' ' produces expected results but a simple search on '>499 kb' does as well so it looks like the search is somewhat intuitive at trying to guess what you were after and can search not only attribute definitions but also process physical attribute values like size in bytes to arrive at the result as well. Impressive. Obvious enough, but impressive that someone actually did it. Still mind-boggling why it's a secret.

Enjoy.

The only way i found after gathering data from many sites was actually simple:

click inside the search box and write:

"type:"

"lenght:"

"kind:"

"name:"

when you write "kind:" it will automatically give you the list of options such as: calendar, movies, pictures, music, documents: email: etc.

I hope this helps or answers your question

YES!  Thank you - this (displaying in detail mode & choosing the arrow next to the column) seems to work well if you want to filter a huge search result - if your original search actually captured the search for item.