{"id":203,"date":"2020-02-17T16:41:29","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T15:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/metashare-help-user-manual-how-to-search-for-documents\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T23:12:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T21:12:42","slug":"how-to-search-for-documents","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/en\/metashare\/usermanual\/find-documents\/how-to-search-for-documents\/","title":{"rendered":"How to search for documents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Searching from within a workspace<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From within a workspace, you can search for documents inside the workspace by following these instructions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Write a search phrase in the search box above the list of documents:
\"\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Select any of the available options presented as drop-downs under the search box, resulting in a document filtering<\/a> on the selected tag\/value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Press the\u00a0“Enter”\u00a0key on the keyboard, which will search for any documents that has the searched phrase within the documents’ file-names, their metadata or as free text inside the documents. The search phrase will then be shown above the document list and the documents in the list will be filtered to reflect the search phrase:
\"\"

In the example above, the searched phrase GDPR is\u00a0available as metadata and as part of the file-name for all documents, except for one, where the phrase will be\u00a0inside the document, as free text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to broaden the search to show results from all workspaces as well as other locations in Microsoft 365, including your personal OneDrive, you click on the link “Show results among all documents”:
\"\"

The link will open the “Documents” tab, on MetaShare’s start page<\/a>, showing search results from all documents that match the searched phrase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Searching from MetaShare’s start page<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From MetaShare’s start page<\/a> you can search for documents across all workspaces as well as other locations in Microsoft 365, including your personal OneDrive, by following these instructions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Go to MetaShare’s start page<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Click on the “Documents<\/a>” tab:
    \"\"
    \n
      \n
    1. The list initially shows the latest 50 documents that you have access to (the documents are initially sorted by the Modified column, descending order), and if you scroll to the bottom of the page, the next batch of 50 documents will be shown.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Before MetaShare is configured with your information structure, it only shows standard SharePoint columns, such as File type, Modified & Modified by. From MetaShare settings<\/a>, you can decide which of these to show as filters\/columns and you are can also define which other metadata fields to show as filters\/columns, e.g. Workspace, Document type & Created by.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Write a search phrase in the search box above the list of documents:
      \"\"
      <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. After having pressed the “Enter”\u00a0key on the keyboard, the search phrase will be shown above the document list and the documents in the list will be filtered to reflect the search phrase.
      \"\"

      \n
        \n
      1. The documents are now sorted by relevance (the documents that most match your searched phrase will be shown on the top of the list).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      2. You only see filters and filter values that are applicable to the documents that you have access to, based on any applied filter\/search, so selecting any value under a specific filter will always show you at least one document.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      3. When you open a filter, the values are sorted by relevance (the value with most occurrences will be shown on the top of the filter) and the number of documents matching the value is shown, in parentheses, to the right of the value:
        \"\"<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      4. Once you have filtered\/refined on a value, you are able to deselect your filter by clicking on the \u201cX\u201d or by selecting the \u201cAll\u201d option:
        \"\"<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      5. If a specific metadata field allows multiple values, you are able to filter on documents that are tagged with more than one value:
        \"\"<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      6. If you want to open the workspace, where the document resides in, you can select a document and click on the “Show in workspace” function:
        \"\"\n
          \n
        1. If the document resides in a MetaShare workspace, the function\u2019s name is \u201cShow in workspace\u201d. If you click on it, the document\u2019s workspace will open and a filtering will be applied, just showing the selected document:
          \"\"<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        2. If the document resides in OneDrive, the function\u2019s name is \u201cShow in OneDrive\u201d. If you click on it, OneDrive will open in a separate tab.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        3. If the document resides in a regular SharePoint site, the function\u2019s name is \u201cShow in SharePoint\u201d. If you click on it, the document\u2019s SharePoint site will open in a separate tab.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        4. If you want to see the search results in SharePoint’s standard search results page, you can click on the “Show results in SharePoint” link, below the search box.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

          Note<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
            \n
          1. For hints on how to search efficiently, please read the advanced search instructions<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          2. A search can be combined with a regular filtering, in this case a\u00a0“Clear all filters”\u00a0button will also be shown, to the right of the applied filters:
            \"\"
            <\/li>\n\n\n\n
          3. Any conducted search will be added to the URL of the page, so after having conducted a search, maybe combined with a filtering<\/a>, you can bookmark the page or easily share this search\/filtering with others by copying it to an e-mail or to a page on an intranet.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          4. If you have misspelled a search phrase you can remove the search tag, by clicking on it:
            \"\"
            The search phrase will then be moved back to the search box, making it easier to conduct a new search, now spelled correctly:
            \"Typing<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          5. If you want to search for a total new phrase just type a new phrase in the search box and it will replace the earlier search query.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          6. In order to get good search performance, the search function uses a search index. The documents must first be queried and indexed before they can be found by the search engine. Therefore, documents that have just been uploaded will not be available until after the next indexing, which usually takes about 15 minutes. The same thing applies to changes in document metadata. These will not be reflected on the document list till these changes have been reindexed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          7. Uppercase\/lowercase is ignored when searching. The exceptions are the logical (Boolean) operations<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          8. If the search phrase consists of multiple words, documents containing all the words in its content will be listed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          9. If the search phrase is written within quotation marks, documents containing the exact search phrase in its content will be listed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          10. Underscore in file name is considered as a word separator (space), ex. Final Report_DMS_project.doc is equal to Final Report DMS project.doc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          11. If you search for a phrase that includes a dot, e.g. “2.4 Digital media”, the recommendation is to exclude the part that has a dot and just search for “Digital media”.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          12. SharePoint has an algorithm for sorting search results in the search list, based on relevance. The relevance order is:\n
              \n
            1. the document\u2019s title<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            2. the document\u2019s name<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            3. other document metadata and free text inside the document<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            4. SharePoint search only indexes the first 150 MB of a document. If the document is larger than this, then the rest of the document will not be indexed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            5. SharePoint search can only index documents with less than 2 million characters.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              MetaShare user guide: how to search for documents. Step-by-step instructions for working with documents and workspaces in MetaShare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":10664,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-203","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"no-featured-image-padding"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12433,"href":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203\/revisions\/12433"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/help.metashare.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}