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Quick Start: Finding Recently Modified Files
Select What to Search
Select the folder(s), paths(s) or drive(s) you want to search in either the left or right windows. The Find dialog will default to searching these selections but they can be easily changed in the dialog itself.
Open the Find Dialog
| • | Select Find | Recent Files... from the main menu |
Enter the Filenames or Patterns to Search for
| • | Enter the file patterns you are looking for. Multiple patterns are separated by either a semi-colon (;) or a bar character (|). You can even specify folders to exclude by preceding the name with a minus sign. For complete details right-click the field in the program |
| • | Hint: You can limit your search (and thus speed it up and make its results more meaningful) by specifying one or more folders to search instead of just a whole drive. You can also, in the Patterns field, specify only certain files to search file such as *.doc | *.jpg | *.jpeg | *.html | *.htm |
| • | Then select the time frame you are looking for. There are three types of time frames, During, In the Last and Between. |
| • | Select the type of time you are looking for. Normally it is best to use the Modified or possibly Accessed time. The Created time can be very misleading as Windows tends to reset the Created times inconsistently. |
| • | In the above example FileBoss will search for all files last modified since mid-night on the current day |
Click OK to search and create a Virtual Folder of all matching files
Nitty, Gritty Details
Using Relative File times
Relative times allow you to find files that were modified, accessed or created within a specified time period. The time frame is calculated every time the search is run meaning that if you create a Virtual Folder today and it is reloaded when you start FileBoss tomorrow, or you save it and open it again another day, the new Virtual Folder will be created based on that future time and not the time when you first clicked the OK button on this dialog.
The one exception is the last option, where you specify a fixed start and end time for the search. These remain constant.
Relative times allow you to find files that were modified, accessed or created within a specified time period. The time frame is calculated every time the search is run meaning that if you create a Virtual Folder today and it is reloaded when you start FileBoss tomorrow, or you save it and open it again another day, the new Virtual Folder will be created based on that future time and not the time when you first clicked the OK button on this dialog.
The one exception is the last option, where you specify a fixed start and end time for the search. These remain constant.
Searches can be based on any type of time
Modified, Accessed or Created
Times can be relative
Such as Today, This Week, This Month and In the Last 15 Minutes
Times can be absolute
Between any two dates and times
Searches can be across a drive, path or multiple drives and paths
Such as C:\ | \\Corp-backup\C\Accounting
Specific folders can be excluded making results more meaningful
C:\ | -Windows | -Program Files would exclude the folders Windows and Program Files and all their subfolders
Specific patterns can be searched for
*.doc | *.rtf would check only files with names ending in doc or rtf.
Specific patterns can be excluded
-*.bak | -*.tmp | -~* search for all files except those that have the extension bak, tmp or that start with the tilde character.
Allows you to find files that were recently modified
or modified in any specified time periods
Uses the power of Virtual Folders
The results of the search are put into a Virtual Folder so that the found files can be manipulated individually, in groups or all together (copy, rename, delete, move and more).
The Search can be saved for later use
So the search can be used over and over again.
To Search for Files based on their times
| • | Activate or open an Explore View |
| • | Make sure that the column for showing the Modified, Accessed and/or Created file times is visible (if not see the next section for how to display the column). |
| • | Click on the appropriate Column header twice to sort all entries by most recent file times |
| • | As you move from folder to folder the files will remain sorted according to chosen time. |
Hint: If you are looking at folders that contain lots of files you can and you know the extension or possible extensions of the file(s) you are looking for you can use a File Filter to only display those files.
Or you can even used Advanced Filtering to only show files with Modified times in the range you want.
Displaying the File Times in the Contents Window
(If the file times are not already displayed in the Contents Window)
| • | This works the same in both Explore Views and Virtual Virtual Folders. |
| • | Move the mouse over the column headers (the column headers are at the top of the Contents Window and have titles like Filename, Ext and Size.) |
| • | Right-click the to display a list of columns that can be displayed |
| • | Check the boxes next to Modified, Accessed or Created as appropriate. |
| • | Click the Close Menu button. |
Hint: You can change the order of the columns by clicking a header with the left mouse button and, while holding the mouse button down, dragging the column to its new location.
Sorting by File Times
Simply click on the header of one of the file time columns. To reverse the sort click the column header again.
Ref: HTDE_FIND_MODIFIED_FILES
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