# The &kfind; Handbook

&Dirk.Doerflinger; &Dirk.Doerflinger.mail;
2001 &Dirk.Doerflinger;
&FDLNotice;
2018-10-22
Applications 18.12

&kfind; is a file find utility by &kde;.

KDE file kfind find search

## Introduction

&kfind; is a file find utility by &kde;.

### Launching &kfind;

The Find Files tool is a useful method of searching for specific files on your computer, or for searching for files that match a pattern. An example of this could include searching for files of a particular type or with certain letters in the filename. You can load this utility in &konqueror; (in file manager mode) by selecting &Ctrl; F Tools Find File from the menu. If you want to use &kfind; as a standalone search tool, launch it by using &krunner;.

## Finding Files

### The Name/Location Tab

When starting &kfind;, you will see a quite simple window. Type in the name of the file you are searching for in the text box labeled Named:. You can use wildcard matching and a semicolon (;) for separating multiple names.

Choose a folder where you want to search by typing it in the field Look in: or by clicking Browse... (you can toggle the display of the hidden files and folder in the dialog using the shortcuts &Alt;. or F8) and press &Enter; or click the Find button. Use the Stop button to cancel a search. A search result can be saved in &HTML; format or as plain text with the Save As... button.

If Include subfolders is checked all subfolders starting from your chosen folder will be searched too. If you enable Case sensitive search, &kfind; will only find files with the exact case matching names. Enable the option Show hidden files to include them in your search. Selecting Use files index lets you use the files' index created by the locate package to speed-up the search.

You can use the following wildcards for file or folder names:

The Asterisk *

  The asterisk stands for any number of missing characters (even zero), that means ⪚ searching for `marc*` may find the files `marc`, `marc.png` and `marc_must_not_read_this.kwd`. `mar*.kwd` may find `marketplace.kwd` and `marc_must_not_read_this.kwd`.

The Question Mark ?

  In contrast to the asterisk, the question mark stands for exactly one character, so `mar?` will find `marc`, but `marc?` will not find anything, as our files are called `marc` and `marc.png`. You can put as many question marks in the term as you want, it will find exactly that number of characters.

The Character Set [...]

  This matches any of the characters between the braces.

Of course you can combine two or more wildcard symbols in a search term.

The results of your search will be displayed in the box below. A click with the &RMB; on a selection in this box opens a context menu with a list of actions for the selected files or folders.

### The Contents Tab

File type

  Here you can specify the type of file you are searching for.

Containing text

  Type in the word or phrase the files you are searching for must contain. Note: If you do this in a large folder or checked Include subfolders in the Name/Location tab, this may take a long time.

  This option will not work for all files listed under File type. Only the following file types are supported:

  - Text files, ⪚ source code and `README` files

  - OpenOffice.org Writer / LibreOffice Writer

  - OpenOffice.org Impress / LibreOffice Impress

  - OpenOffice.org Calc / LibreOffice Calc

  - Calligra Words

  - Calligra Sheets

  - Calligra Stage

Case sensitive

  If you enable this option, &kfind; will only find text in files with the exact case matching, ⪚ `MARC` will only match MARC, not Marc.

Regular expression

  If you have installed the &kregexpeditor; tool from playground/utils on the &kde; git server, you will have this additional option. Enabling it will allow you to search for a regexp or regular expression. A regexp is a way to specify conditions for your search, and they can be very complex, and equally they can be very powerful. If you are unfamiliar with regular expressions, you can choose Edit button to open &kregexpeditor;. This tool allows you to construct your set of conditions graphically, and then generates the expression for you.

  &kregexpeditor; is a very useful tool, and can be used from within many &kde; applications other than &kfind;. You can find more information from within its own help file.

Include binary files

  This lets you search in any type of file, even those that usually do not contain text (for example program files and images).

Search metainfo sections

  These two fields can be used to search within files' specific comments or metainfo.

  Here are some major cases:

  - Video files (avi, mp4, &etc;): specify some tag (`Bitrate`, `Duration`, &etc;) and its value to find items which have the specified parameter value in their metadata.

  - Images (png, jpeg, &etc;): specify some tag (`Width`, `Height`, &etc;) and its value to find items which have the specified parameter value in their metadata.

  - Audio files (mp3, flac, &etc;): specify some tag (`Title`, `Album`, &etc;) and its value to find items which have the specified parameter value in their metadata.

  - Ebooks (epub, azw, fb2, &etc;): specify some tag (`Title`, `Author`, &etc;) and its value to find items which have the specified parameter value in their metadata.

  If there is a translation of the tags into your language you can use the localized tag names in the search criterion.

### The Properties Tab

Here you can refine your search. These are the special refinements you can choose:

Find all files created or modified

  Here you can either enter two dates, between which the files were created or modified, or specify a time period.

File size is

  Here you can specify if the file has to be at least or at most as big as the size you entered in the following box, or else equal to the size.

Files owned by user, Files owned by group

  Here you can specify user and group names as owner of the files.

## Credits and License

&kfind;

Program copyright:

Developers

- Martin Hartig

- &Stephan.Kulow; &Stephan.Kulow.mail;

- &Mario.Weilguni; &Mario.Weilguni.mail;

- &Alex.Zepeda; jazepeda@pacbell.net

- Miroslav Flídr flidr@kky.zcu.cz

- &Harri.Porten; &Harri.Porten.mail;

- Dima Rogozin dima@mercury.co.il

- &Carsten.Pfeiffer; &Carsten.Pfeiffer.mail;

- Hans Petter Bieker bieker@kde.org

- &Waldo.Bastian; &Waldo.Bastian.mail;

Documentation copyright 2001 &Dirk.Doerflinger; &Dirk.Doerflinger.mail;

&underFDL; &underGPL;
&documentation.index;