Searching
A search in Skwir is a place: come back to it, open it in a tab, keep it in the sidebar. Here is what you can ask for, and how to narrow what it finds.
Start a search
CtrlF searches the folder shown and everything below it; results come in as they are found. AltEnter in the address searches your home folder instead.
A search is a place: it has Back and Forward, opens in a tab, and every view and the preview work on it. A Folder column says where each result is, and Show in Folder (CtrlAltO) goes there.
What to ask for
The address shows what a search looks for as pills: click one to change it, or + Filter to add one. You can also type it all as text:
| Type | To find |
|---|---|
report |
names containing “report” |
*.pdf, ext:pdf |
files by extension |
kind:image,video, mime:application/pdf |
files by kind or type |
type:dir, type:file |
folders only, files only |
size>10M, size<1.5G |
files by size |
modified>=2026-01-01, modified<7d, modified:this-week |
files by date |
tag:Places/France, -tag:draft |
files with a tag, or without |
rating>=3, comment:holiday |
files by rating or comment |
content:"it's here", content:/re+gex/i |
files holding a text, or matching a regex |
near:45.0,6.0~5km |
photos taken near a place |
in:"~/My Files", depth:2, hidden:true |
where and how deep to look |
a OR b, NOT a, (a b) |
either, not, together |
Terms side by side must all match: *.pdf modified<7d size>10M finds last week’s large PDFs. Dates are read in your calendar, so modified:this-week starts on the day your week starts. tag:Places also finds what is tagged Places/France/Paris.
Keep a search
CtrlD keeps the search in the sidebar. Clicking it runs it again, so it always shows what matches now. Rename, move or hide it like any place.
Narrow by
Over a search or a tag, a bar under the address offers what the list can be narrowed to: the tags its files have, their kinds and their years, each with a count. Click one to keep only those files, again to see them all. A narrowing by a tag shows as a pill in the tag’s color.
Over a folder, choose Narrow by in the View menu to show the same bar. A folder narrowed this way stays narrowed in the folders below it.
Other ways to find things
- Filter as you type: CtrlL and a few words filter the folder shown; Esc shows everything again.
- First letters: type them in the list to go to a name.
- Jump (CtrlJ) goes to a folder you used before.
- Find Similar, in a file’s menu, searches for files of the same kind, day, size or tags.
- The timeline (CtrlShiftL) searches a period when you click its bar; the map searches the area shown.
Where results come from
Where your desktop’s indexes run (Baloo on KDE, plocate), a search asks them first to go faster, then checks the files themselves, so what it shows is what is on the disk now. A search by content reads the files it looks at.