Windows Search syntax: datemodified:, ext:, kind:, size: and content:

The short version: type datemodified:today straight into the File Explorer search box — no space after the colon, no menus. datemodified:yesterday, datemodified:this week and the range form datemodified:01/06/2026..12/06/2026 all work the same way, and they stack with a file filter: *.xlsx datemodified:today. If a query returns nothing, you are almost certainly searching an unindexed folder — jump to troubleshooting.

Date operators: datemodified: and friends

Windows File Explorer accepts a query language called Advanced Query Syntax (AQS). You never need to open a menu: click the search box in any folder, type an operator, press Enter. The date operators are the ones people reach for most, and they are the ones Windows hides best.

Write the property as one word, with no space after the colon. datemodified:today works; datemodified: today does not. Windows also accepts the shorter modified: as a synonym for datemodified:, so both of the following find the same files:

datemodified:today
modified:today

The named periods

These relative values are the fastest way to answer "what did I touch recently?" — every one of them works in Windows 10 and Windows 11:

Two details that catch people out. First, this week and last month keep their space — the space belongs to the value, not the operator, so datemodified:this week is correct. Second, yesterday is a closed 24-hour window, not "the last 24 hours"; a file edited at 11pm yesterday and again at 9am today only answers to datemodified:today.

Exact dates and ranges

The two-dot range operator is the most useful piece of AQS almost nobody knows about. It accepts any pair of dates in your locale's format:

datemodified:01/06/2026..12/06/2026
datemodified:>01/06/2026
datemodified:<=31/12/2025
datemodified:01/08/2026

Use whichever date order your Windows install uses — if your Explorer shows dates as 6/1/2026, type them that way. The comparison forms (>, <, >=, <=) are open-ended, so datemodified:>01/06/2026 means "everything since the first of June".

Explorer also fills this in for you: click inside the search box, open the Search options menu (Windows 11) or the Search ribbon tab (Windows 10), choose Date modified → Custom, and pick dates on the calendar. Explorer writes the AQS into the box, which is a handy way to learn your locale's exact date format.

Created, accessed and taken

Modified is not the only timestamp. Swap the property name and everything above still applies:

• datecreated:today — when the file first landed on this machine. Useful for downloads, because copying a file gives it a new creation date but often preserves the old modified date.
• dateaccessed:this week — last time the file was opened. Windows throttles these updates for performance, so treat the results as approximate.
• datetaken:2026 — the EXIF capture date on photos, which is what you actually want when sorting a camera dump.

If you need timestamp precision finer than a day — "everything modified in the last two hours" — Explorer cannot do it, but PowerShell and Everything can. Our guide to finding recently modified files has the exact commands.

File type: *.xlsx, ext: and kind:

There are three ways to say "only this kind of file", and they behave differently.

kind: is the one to reach for when you don't know the extension: kind:document covers .docx, .pdf, .txt, .odt and a dozen more without you listing them. kind:folder is the trick for finding a directory rather than a file — Explorer otherwise buries folders among file results.

Combining date and file type

Operators separated by a space are joined with an implicit AND, so stacking them needs no extra syntax. These are the queries people actually type, ready to copy:

*.docx datemodified:today
*.xlsx datemodified:yesterday
*.pdf datemodified:this week
*.txt datemodified:today
*.pptx datemodified:this week
ext:xlsx datemodified:this month
kind:document datemodified:last week
*.* datemodified:today

Order does not matter — datemodified:today *.docx is the same query as *.docx datemodified:today. The *.* form is worth knowing as a deliberate "every file, no type filter", which sidesteps Explorer's habit of also matching folder names.

One important scoping rule: Explorer searches the folder you are currently in, and its subfolders — nothing above it. To sweep an entire drive, open This PC or the drive root first, then type the query. Whole-drive searches outside indexed locations are slow; that is a limitation of the index, not of your query, and the fix is below.

Every operator worth knowing

Date and type filters cover most of what people need, but AQS has more. These all work in the same search box, in Windows 10 and Windows 11:

The named size buckets are a small time-saver: tiny (under 10 KB), small, medium, large, huge (128 MB–1 GB) and gigantic (over 4 GB). For a proper disk clean-out, size:gigantic is a decent first pass — our guide to finding large files on a PC covers the treemap tools that do it better.

Boolean logic and comparisons

AQS understands AND, OR and NOT, plus parentheses for grouping. The keywords must be in capitals — this is the single most common reason a boolean query silently misbehaves, because lowercase and is treated as an ordinary search word.

kind:document AND datemodified:last week
ext:pdf AND size:>5MB NOT name:draft
(ext:doc OR ext:docx) AND content:"quarterly forecast"
*.xlsx datemodified:this week NOT folderpath:archive

Quotation marks force an exact phrase: content:"payment terms" finds the two words together, while content:payment terms finds files containing "payment" and, separately, anything named "terms". Wrap any value containing a space in quotes and you will avoid most surprises.

The same searches in Everything

If Explorer's index keeps letting you down, Everything answers the same questions instantly across every NTFS drive, with its own shorter syntax:

Everything indexes the NTFS Master File Table rather than file contents, which is why filename and date queries are instant while content search is not. The trade-offs are laid out in our Everything vs Windows Search comparison.

Troubleshooting: when a query returns nothing

You typed a space after the colon. datemodified: today is parsed as an empty date filter plus the word "today". Delete the space. This is the single most common cause.

The folder isn't indexed. Outside indexed locations, Explorer falls back to reading the file system directly — slow, and on large trees it can appear to return nothing while it grinds. Open Indexing Options → Modify from the Start menu and add the folders you actually work in. Our fix for slow Windows search covers rebuilding a stale index.

Your Windows is localised. Non-English installs may expect the translated property name — this is why queries like datemodified:hoje or datemodified:heute turn up. The reliable workaround on any language: use the Date modified dropdown once, and Explorer writes the correct localised syntax into the search box for you to copy.

Timestamps look wrong. Cloud sync clients rewrite modified dates when they re-download or resolve a conflict, so files nobody touched can show up under datemodified:today. Copying a file also resets its creation date while preserving the modified date, which makes datecreated: unreliable for anything that has been moved between drives.

content: finds nothing. Content search only works in indexed locations, and only for file types with a text filter registered. Scanned PDFs have no text layer at all. Both problems, and their fixes, are in our guide to searching file contents in Windows.

Network drives ignore everything. Windows never indexes a mapped drive from the client side, so date and content filters on Z:\ either crawl or fail. See searching network drives for the workarounds.

FAQ