How to Use and Customize Search in Windows 11

Find what you are looking for quickly and easily

Do you want to find anything on your Windows 11 PC quickly and easily? Whether you’re looking for apps, files, settings, or web results, you can use the built-in search functionality in Windows 11 to find what you need.

To help you, we’ll explain how you can use and customize the search features on Windows 11 to suit your own requirements.

How Does Searching Work on Windows 11?

Searching in Windows 11 isn’t just about looking for files. You can use Windows 11’s built-in search functionality to look for virtually anything on your PC, whether it’s an app, the location of a certain setting, or to find online search results from the Start menu.

The search functionality also integrates well with other Microsoft services, so you can use it to find results from linked services like OneDrive, Outlook, or SharePoint, as long as it’s linked to your current Microsoft account.

You can access many of the search features from the Taskbar and the Start menu, as well as fromFile Explorer. You can also use keyboard shortcuts and filters to refine your searches and get more relevant results.

Related:Learn how to troubleshoot whenyour Windows Search bar keeps closingunexpectedly.

How to Access Search on Windows 11

There are a few different ways to access the search functionality on a Windows 11 PC.

If you’re looking to search for other types of content (such as apps or settings), you’ll need to use the search menu or Start menu to look for them. However, if you use the search functionality in File Explorer, you’ll be limited to searching for specific files—you can’t use it to find a setting in the Settings app, for instance.

If you’re struggling totype into the search box on Windows 11, don’t forget to open up the Start menu and start typing there instead.

How to Refine Your Searches on Windows 11

Although you can type anything in the Search box and get relevant results, you can also use some tricks to refine your searches and get more specific results.

The quickest way to refine your searches in the Start menu or search box is touse search filters. When you performing a search query, you can click one of the filters, such asapps, documents, web, folders, music, photos, people,orsettingsto narrow down the search.

Alternatively, you can also type the query with the filter prefix. For example, if you want to search for a specific document, you can type something likeapps: keywordand the query will show only the files that match the keyword you specified.

For instance,apps: wordwill look for all applications that containWordin the filename, such as Microsoft Word or WordPad. Typingapps:word(with no spacing) will also work for single word queries.

You can alsouse search operators and wildcardsto help you refine your searches for more precision. However, your success with using these will vary, depending on whether you’re using them in the Start or search menu or within a Windows app like File Explorer.

For example, you can use quotation marks (“) to search for an exact phrase or word order (such as“file”). You can use a minus sign (–) to exclude a word or phrase from your search query (eg.-file) or use a wildcard such as an asterisk (*) to identify partial matches to queries.

Alternatively, you can use operators likeAND,OR, andNOT(in capital letters) to combine or exclude multiple terms. You can also use parentheses () to group terms together.

How to Customize Search Indexing on Windows 11

To make it easier for your PC to quickly pull up search results,Windows maintains asearch index. This is a database of files, applications, and settings that it can quickly refer to when you make a search, rather than make a huge (and time-consuming) search each time.

This can have some disadvantages, however. Search indexing can slow down older PCs, but you may also want to configure how it works in practice.

If you make changes to your index, it may need to rebuild, which could take time to complete. Alternatively, you may want torestart your PCto see any system changes take effect fully.

How to Manage Search Permissions on Windows 11

You can manage which apps and services can access your search history and show you suggestions by changing your search permissions settings in the Windows Settings app.

In the Search permissions menu, you can control what access the search functionality (and by extension Microsoft) has to different parts of your data.

The powerful search tool is the quickest, easiest way to manage your Windows 11 PC and locate important files, settings, and applications. If you’re unhappy with it, you can customize and control its features using the steps we’ve outlined above.

If yourWindows 11 search isn’t working, you’ll need to troubleshoot it with a few built-in tools next. Once it’s working, you can always try to narrow down your searches with someWindows search tips, such as using different parameters to narrow down your searches even further.

Ben Stockton is a freelance technology writer based in the United Kingdom. In a past life, Ben was a college lecturer in the UK, training teens and adults. Since leaving the classroom, Ben has taken his teaching experience and applied it to writing tech how-to guides and tutorials, specialising in Linux, Windows, and Android. He has a degree in History and a postgraduate qualification in Computing.Read Ben’s Full Bio

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