The search box accepts more than plain words. With a few simple rules you can search in a specific field, combine conditions and exclude results.
Searching in one field
Type the field name, a colon and the value:
status:ProductionusageRights:"Rights managed"
Put a phrase in double quotes. The field name used here is the internal name, which often differs from the name you see on screen. Your administrator can give you a list of internal names.
Combining conditions
Operators must be written in capital letters.
AND: both conditions must match. This is the default when you list conditions without an operator.OR: either condition may match, for examplestatus:New OR status:Draft.NOTor-: excludes files, for exampleusageRights:"Rights managed" NOT status:Production.+: requires that a term is present.- Parentheses group conditions, for example
(status:New OR status:Draft) AND usageRights:"Rights managed".
When you use - or !, put the term directly after it without a space.
Ranges
Use TO with square brackets to include the end values, and curly brackets to exclude them:
resolutionX:[100 TO 300]dueDate:[2026-12-29 TO 2026-12-31}
Use an asterisk for an open end, for example licenseEndDate:[NOW TO *] for files whose license has not yet expired.
Wildcards and similar words
te?tmatches both test and text, andtest*matches every word that starts with test.roam~finds words that are spelled similarly, such as foam.- Wildcards are slow. To find a file type, use
extension:jpginstead offilename:*.jpg.
Searching for what is missing
copyright:*finds files that have a value in the copyright field.*:* -copyright:*finds files that have no copyright value. Start with*:*(all files) and subtract what you do not want.
Folders in a query
ancestorPaths:"/Demo Zone" finds files in a folder and its subfolders. folderPath:"/Demo Zone" finds only the files directly in that folder.
Where to go next
Next, learn the different ways to select several files at once.