Choosing Criteria in the Advanced Search Pane

When using the Advanced Search pane, you can choose to search a large assortment of criteria from ACDSee Metadata, IPTC, EXIF, and other file information. See table below for commonly used criteria, and examples of other criteria datatypes.

Data Types

Definitions and Examples

Filename

Search for files or folders by name. Search terms can be separated by semicolons for all the search types except Pattern Match. Search history is stored for Filename searches. Use the UP and DOWN arrow keys to select different auto-complete suggestions from your history, and press ENTER or TAB to enter the selected suggestion. Change to the Pattern Match search type to make use of Wildcards:

Wildcard

Result

Example

?

Matches any single character in the file name.

ca?.jpg results in cat.jpg, cap.jpg, and car.jpg, but not cats.jpg

*

Matches zero or more characters in the file name.

cat* results in cat.jpg, cats.jpg, and cathy.jpg

[…]

Matches any of the enclosed characters.

ca[tr] results in cat.jpg or car.jpg, but not cap.jpg

[!…]

Matches any character not enclosed.

cat[!0] results in cata.jpg and catb.jpg, but not cat0.jpg

[…-…]

Matches any character in the specified range.

cat[a-f0-9] results in cata.jpg, catb.jpg, catf.jpg and cat0.jpg, cat1.jpg, …, cat9.jpg

\

Blocks the use of other wildcard characters that are also characters permitted in a file name, such as square brackets: [ ]. The * and ? characters are not permitted in file names so this function does not work with them.

Because square brackets are wildcards, if you wanted to search for a file name that contains a bracket, you must precede the bracket with a backslash:

ACD\[123\] results in ACD[123].gif

Patterns are not case-sensitive. To use multiple patterns, separate the names with spaces or semicolons. To match a pattern containing a space or semicolon, enclose the pattern in double quotation marks. If you do not include the * wildcard in your pattern, the pattern is matched as a sub-string. For example, cat would match cat, cathy and bobcat, and is equivalent to the pattern *cat*.

Text

String-based search on several common fields. Choose from any or all of: Captions, Categories, Keywords, Labels, Notes, and People.Search history is stored for Text searches. Use the UP and DOWN arrow keys to select different auto-complete suggestions from your history, and press ENTER or TAB to enter the selected suggestion.

People, Keywords, and Categories

Combination string and lookup list searches. Open the Value Picker to choose values from the database, or type custom strings in the text field. Search terms can be separated by semicolons.

Rating

Select the ratings you'd like to search.

Label

Select the labels you'd like to search. Choose from any of your label sets, or change to Text Search to search for custom values.

String

Search for strings of text, can be separated by semicolons. Example: Maker

Date/Time

Search for a date and time. Set the precision to day or second. Example: Date/Time Original

Lookup List

Select one or more values from the Value Picker. Example: Image Type

Integer

Search an integer number. Example: ISO

Rational

Search for a rational number as a fraction or decimal number. Example: F-Number

When using a semicolon(;) to separate search terms, you can use two semicolons(;;) to search for a literal semicolon instead.