You don't need to manually search through a long list of folders and files to locate what you're looking for. If you know the file name, the folder name, or the author's name, you can simply search using this information. If you only know a keyword inside the content of a file, you can also search for it in Zoho WorkDrive.
You can apply filters to further narrow down your search results. This can save you a lot of time when working on a range of projects.
Search for a file or folder
1. Go to your Zoho WorkDrive account.
2. Click the Search icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
3. Type a keyword into the search bar.
As you type, the top 20 matches found for the keyword will appear below. You can scroll down to see the Team Folders, folders, and files found for the search.
What's included in matches:
- Files and folders that have the file, folder, or author name matching with the keyword will be shown.
- Team Folders that have the team folder name or name of the user who created the team folder matching with the keyword will also be shown.
4. Press the Enter key or click the Show All Results tab at the bottom of the search results.
A new search screen with filters will open.
What's included in all results:
- Files and folders that have the file, folder, or author name matching with the keyword will be shown.
- Files that have content matching with the entire keyword will also be listed here. These results won't be shown as matches when you type keywords in the search bar. All word documents, presentations, spreadsheets, PDF files, or text files (including zip files) will be searched for any keyword match in their content.
- Files that have image text matching with the entire keyword will be listed.
- Files that have image objects matching with the entire keyword will be listed.
Note: Team Folders, if found as matches in Step 3, will not be included in all results.
5. Add filters at the top of search results to narrow down your search further.
All Location: Filter results based on their location from: My Folders, Shared with Me, and Team Folders. To choose a team folder, select the team first, then select a team folder in it.
All File Types: Filter results based on folders and file type: documents, spreadsheets, presentations, images, videos, etc.
All Dates: Filter results based on the date filters: Today, Yesterday, Last 7 Days, Last Month, or set a custom date.
Created by: Filter results based on the creator.
6. Click on a file name to open it, or hover your mouse over the file and select GO TO FOLDER to go its location. To open a folder, click on its name.
Search within a folder
You can quickly find your files by searching directly inside a particular Team Folder, My Folders, or a sub-folder inside these folders.
- Go to your Zoho WorkDrive account.
- Select My Folders or a Team Folder in the left pane.
- Click the dropdown arrow next to My Folders at the top-left and select Search in My Folders.
For a Team Folder, click the dropdown arrow next to the Team Folder name at the top-left and select Search in <teamfoldername>.
- Type a keyword into the search bar.
As you type, the top 20 matches found for the keyword will appear below. You can scroll down to see the files and folders found for the search.
- Press Enter or click the Show All Results tab at the bottom of the search results.
A new search screen with filters will open.
- Add filters at the top of search results to narrow down your search further.
- Click on a file name to open it, or hover your mouse over the file and select GO TO FOLDER to go its location. To open a folder, click on its name.
You can also search inside a sub-folder from your My Folders or a Team Folder. To do this, go to your My Folders or a Team Folder, then open a sub folder, then right-click and select Search in {sub-folder name}.
Search for a template
You can now find a template from your gallery directly using global search. You no longer need to manually search through a long list of templates.
Note: You can search and find only the templates that are available in My Templates or Org Templates . You cannot search for Public Templates .
- Go to your Zoho WorkDrive account.
- Click the Search icon at the top-right corner.
- Click the dropdown next to SEARCH ALL in the search bar and select Templates.
- Type the template's or the author's name, or a keyword inside the content of a template.
- As you type, the top matches found for the keyword will appear below.
- Press Enter or click the Show All Results tab at the bottom of the search results.
Note: When the Templates filter is not applied, templates will not be shown in search results.
Save search
You can now save search keywords along with filters, making the process of generating search results effortless.
Note: Currently, you can save a maximum of 10 searches.
To save searches:
- Click the Search icon and enter your desired search keywords to find files or folders.
- Apply necessary filters based on your search criteria.
- Once the search results appear, click Save this search at the top.
- Provide a name for the generated search.
- Click Save to store the searched keyword and applied filters. You can then access your saved searches within the search window below Recent searches.
Manage saved searches
You can rename or delete saved searches whenever necessary.
To rename a saved search:
- Click the Search icon and select the saved search you want to rename. This will generate search results based on the selected criteria.
- Once the saved search results appear, click on the More actions (...) icon next to the search keyword and choose Rename.
- Make necessary changes to the name and click Save.
To delete the saved search:
- Click the Search icon and select the saved search you want to delete. This will generate search results based on the selected criteria.
- Once the saved search results appear, click the More actions (...) icon next to the search keyword and choose Delete.
Recent search listings
Your recent searches are now at your fingertips within the search window. Click the Search icon and access your recent searches within it.
Note: Currently, the search window will only display the three most recent searches. Searching text within images - Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
This feature extracts text from all your images, i.e, from image files as well as from documents where images have been added. Texts will be extracted from images and converted into searchable metadata through the method of Optical Character Recognition (OCR).
For example, if you use the search term "car", the OCR feature will fetch all images and documents where the word "car" occurs in images.
Supported encoding for text extraction: UTF-8
Supported image formats - jpeg, png, jpg, tiff, tif, bmp
Supported document formats - pdf, docx, doc, pptx, ppt
- Only printed texts in images can be searched in WorkDrive (hand-written texts are not supported).
- Texts in images cannot be searched using the Finder option.
- If a font used in a file doesn’t conform to UTF-8 standards, any text content in that font cannot be extracted. WorkDrive doesn’t support adding new font styles for text extraction.
Here are the limitations related to OCR when searching for files and folders:
- Images with a file size of 20 MB or less will be eligible for OCR indexing.
- Images with dimensions (height or width) of 5,000 pixels or less will be eligible for OCR indexing.
- Only the first two images within a document will be indexed for OCR search.
- Only the first two pages of a document will be scanned for images during OCR processing.
Searching objects in images (Object Detection)
With WorkDrive's Object Detection feature, you can search for image files based on the actual objects present in them. For example, if you use the search term "laptop", the Object Detection feature will fetch all images that have the object laptop in them.
- A search result is organized based on its relevancy score compared to all other results. Files with matching metadata (filename and author's name) are shown at the top of the search results, followed by files with matching content (text, image text and image object).
- Searching texts and objects in images is supported in both web and mobile apps.
- OCR and Object Detection will not be done on files uploaded before February 2020.