This tutorial explains how a user can search for files and folders on a Kubuntu computer. This tutorial applies to Dolphin, the file manager of Kubuntu, thus also applies to any other systems that use Dolphin like KaOS and openSUSE.

Subscribe to UbuntuBuzz Telegram Channel to get article updates.

Step 1. Open File Manager

On Kubuntu, your file manager's name is Dolphin.

Open start menu → click Dolphin → file manager will open. Alternatively, click Home folder on desktop.

Step 2. Visit Where You Want To Search

Before searching, open the folder where you want to do file searching. In this example, we open our DATA partition where we store many of documents, videos, programs and other files. 

Step 3. Search

Click magnifier glass (🔍 Find) button → search box will open → type a keyword → search result will automatically be displayed, increasingly → click Find button again to close search.

⭐ For example: search for 'mp4' will find videos, search for 'mp3' will find audios, and search for 'flower' will find folders and files with flower in their names, all typed without quotes.

• When searching for flower, filter "jasmine", so you can quickly exclude flowers which are not jasmine.
• When searching for mp4, filter "flower", so you can quickly exclude videos which do not have flower in its name.
• When searching for pdf, filter "tax", so you can quickly exclude your PDF documents which are not for tax filing purpose.

(Left: before filtering | Right: after filtering)

Step 5. Advanced Search

Kubuntu is the most advanced in terms of file searching, compared to another desktop Free Software systems. It features:

• Search by contents
• Search by time
• Search by type
• Search by rating
  
• Save search

Search by contents: it is similar to Google Search, where you can find a web page by its text contents. To do it: start a search → click Content instead of Filename right below the search box → do the search. Note that this works best for plain text files (.txt .html .source-code).

Search by time: start a search → click More Options → select a time range option between Today to This Year → do the search. This should limit your search result to find files created between time range you selected.

Search by rating: start a search → click More Options → select a rating option between '1 or more' to 'Highest Rating' → do the search. This should limit your search result to find starred files under the rating you selected. To do this, of course the targeted files must be starred beforehand (enable Information Panel first then select a file).

Save search: on Kubuntu, certain searches can be saved to save the user time so he/she will not need to repeat same search over and over again. To save a search, do a search → click Save (💾) button on the search box → search saved in the left panel.