How to find a folder inside a specific parent folder with Windows 10 search engine without knowing the full path?

0

I only know that the folder is called Pictures and the parent folder is called Media (full path could be C:\XXXX\XXXX\XXXX\Media\Pictures. Is there anything I can type into the Win10 search engine that retrieves that folder (and any other folder called Media inside a parent folder called Pictures) without knowing the full path of said folder? If I just type "media", search retrieves hundreds of other folders from program files, etc. so I need a better solution.

Edit: Clearer explanation:

I want to use the Windows 10 Search function (next to the start button in the bottom left corner) to quickly find a folder in my computer. That folder is named "Pictures", but so are hundreds of other folders (in my computer). The parent of the folder I'm trying to find is called "Media", but so are hundreds of other folders, too. What I mean with these last 2 sentences is that I can't just type "Pictures" or "Media" on the search bar to retrieve a precise search result. However, the number of folders called "Pictures" whose parent is called "Media" is very low or just 1 (the folder I'm looking for). i.e., I want to find folders with name "A" that verify the condition "have a parent folder named B". In the example, A=Pictures, B=Media. Their path would then be X:\XXXX\XXXX\...\Media\Pictures. Because they have "B\A" in their path, I figured typing "B\A" in the search box would be the most intuitive, but it doesn't work.

mariogarcc

Posted 2020-02-13T13:22:30.767

Reputation: 111

Answers

2

Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the parent Pictures folder, so it becomes the current folder.

Type into the Search box the text : Media kind:folder and press Enter to search.

Alternatively, you could in the Search Tools pane of Explorer, Refine group, click Type and choose Folder.


You could also use a more sophisticated search product such as the free Everything by voidtools.

After the initial indexing, Everything returns answers lightning-fast and as you type.

You could search easily for Media\Pictures. You could also look for deeper sub-folders by using Media\*\Pictures which will look for all Pictures anywhere below Media. Everything also supports Perl regular expressions.

harrymc

Posted 2020-02-13T13:22:30.767

Reputation: 306 093

The whole point is to not have to navigate through 10 directories (e.g. C:\Users\Me\Folders\Programming\Personal\Projects...). For example, let's say I have a folder with tens of projects and each project has an assets folder. It would be ideal if I could just press the Windows key and then type a short phrase to retrieve that assets folder. Personally I don't know why syntax like "Project1\Assets" doesn't exist, but I'm looking for something (simple) similar to this. Otherwise, the answer below that uses PowerShell is the closest I can find. – mariogarcc – 2020-02-15T00:18:47.920

The current folder can be the disk root (C:\), if you like, and this would be quite fast. Otherwise, please explain better what you are trying to do. – harrymc – 2020-02-15T07:33:01.987

Expanded explanation in post body. – mariogarcc – 2020-02-15T16:18:14.770

I suggest a free third-party product that is ultra-fast and very sophisticated. – harrymc – 2020-02-15T18:39:01.790

1

The below PowerShell command will search for all directories with any combination of "Media" & "Pictures" in the path and export the results (Full path of each match) to a file called FileSearch.txt on your desktop.

(gci c:\ -Recurse -Directory | Where {$_.FullName -like "*pictures*" -and $_.FullName -like "*media*"}).FullName > C:\Users\$env:username\desktop\Filesearch.txt

Depending on the amount of data you have this could take a while to run.

CraftyB

Posted 2020-02-13T13:22:30.767

Reputation: 1 488

I don't know if this was either really fast and didn't find anything or that it takes more than 5 minutes to search in a 250 GB disk. – mariogarcc – 2020-02-15T17:38:16.677

1

If Explorer Search is still working (1909 users have been having issues), the following (tested here) typed in the Search box should work:

path:media\Pictures

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Keith Miller

Posted 2020-02-13T13:22:30.767

Reputation: 1 789