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Library Search

TagStudio provides various methods to search your library, ranging from TagStudio data such as tags to inherent file data such as paths or media types.

Boolean Operators

TagStudio allows you to use common boolean search operators when searching your library, along with grouping, nesting, and character escaping. Note that you may need to use grouping in order to get the desired results you're looking for.

AND

The AND operator will only return results that match both sides of the operator. AND is used implicitly when no boolean operators are given. To use the AND operator explicitly, simply type "and" (case insensitive) in-between items of your search.

Example

Searching for "Tag1 Tag2" will be treated the same as "Tag1 AND Tag2" and will only return results that contain both Tag1 and Tag2.

OR

The OR operator will return results that match either the left or right side of the operator. To use the OR operator simply type "or" (case insensitive) in-between items of your search.

Example

Searching for "Tag1 OR Tag2" will return results that contain either "Tag1", "Tag2", or both.

NOT

The NOT operator will returns results where the condition on the right is false. To use the NOT operator simply type "not" (case insensitive) in-between items of your search. You can also begin your search with NOT to only view results that do not contain the next term that follows.

Example

Searching for "Tag1 NOT Tag2" will only return results that contain "Tag1" while also not containing "Tag2".

Grouping and Nesting

Searches can be grouped and nested by using parentheses to surround parts of your search query.

Example

Searching for "(Tag1 OR Tag2) AND Tag3" will return results any results that contain Tag3, plus one or the other (or both) of Tag1 and Tag2.

Escaping Characters

Sometimes search queries have ambiguous characters and need to be "escaped". This is most common with tag names which contain spaces, or overlap with existing search keywords such as "path: of exile". To escape most search terms, surround the section of your search in plain quotes. Alternatively, spaces in tag names can be replaced by underscores.

Valid Escaped Tag Searches

  • "Tag Name With Spaces"
  • Tag_Name_With_Spaces

Invalid Escaped Tag Searches

  • Tag Name With Spaces
    • Reason: Ambiguity between a tag named "Tag Name With Spaces" and four individual tags called "Tag", "Name", "With", "Spaces".

Tags

Tag search is the default mode of file entry search in TagStudio. No keyword prefix is required, however using tag: will also work. The tag search attempts to match tag names, shorthands, aliases, as well as allows for tags to substitute in for any of their parent tags.

You may also see the tag_id: prefix keyword show up with using the right-click "Search for Tag" option on tags. This is meant for internal use, and eventually will not be displayed or accessible to the user.

Fields

Field search is currently not in the program, however is coming in a future version.

File Entry Search

Filename and Path

Filename and path search is available via the path: keyword and comes in a few different styles. By default, any string that follows the path: keyword will be searched as a substring inside a file's complete filepath. This means that given a file folder/my_file.txt, searching for path: my_file or path: folder will both return results for that file.

Case Sensitivity

TagStudio uses a "smartcase"-like system for case sensitivity. This means that a search term typed in lowercase will be treated as case-insensitive, while a term typed in any MixedCase will be treated as case-sensitive. This makes it quicker to type searches when case sensitivity isn't required, while also providing a simple option to leverage case sensitivity when desired. Note that this means there's technically no way to currently search for a lowercase term while respecting case sensitivity.

Glob Syntax

Optionally, you may use glob syntax to search filepaths.

Examples

Given a file "Artwork/Piece.jpg", the following searches will return results for it:

  • path: artwork/piece.jpg
  • path: Artwork/Piece.jpg
  • path: piece.jpg
  • path: Piece.jpg
  • path: artwork
  • path: rtwor
  • path: ece.jpg
  • path: iec
  • path: artwork/*
  • path: Artwork/*
  • path: *piece.jpg*
  • path: *Piece.jpg*
  • path: *artwork*
  • path: *Artwork*
  • path: *rtwor*
  • path: *ece.jpg*
  • path: *iec*
  • path: *.jpg

While the following searches will NOT:

  • path: ARTWORK/Piece.jpg (Reason: Mismatched case)
  • path: *aRtWoRk/Piece* (Reason: Mismatched case)
  • path: PieCe.jpg (Reason: Mismatched case)
  • path: *PieCe.jpg* (Reason: Mismatched case)

Special Searches

Some predefined searches use the special: keyword prefix and give quick results for certain special search queries.

Untagged

To see all your file entries which don't contain any tags, use the special: untagged search.

Empty

NOTE: Currently unavailable in v9.5.0

To see all your file entries which don't contain any tags and any fields, use the special: empty search.