We know that windows comes with a powerful search engine, and how to use it to find applications, search the windows store, get results from the web, find files on your PC. But did you know that you can configure windows 10 search to search for file content?
Searching through file contents
Most PC users have the impression that windows 10 can’t search for file content, and only Microsoft Office has the ability to do so. But the fact is, you can use the start menu search to search for file content. If you want to know why you can’t search the contents of a file, it’s because the search for text in a file is turned off by default.
And before we tell you how to configure Windows 10’s search to index file contents, you need to know two things. First, while it’s easier to configure the Windows Search feature to index file and file contents, Windows 10 might not be able to find file content that you’re searching for as fast as it does the job when you search for apps or files. Of course, this entirely depends on how many documents are there on your PC, and in most cases, you won’t see any delay.
Second, in order to configure Windows 10 to search through file contents, you need to rebuild the search index, and it might take hours depending on the number of files. When the rebuilding is in progress, the search might not work correctly.
Configuring Windows 10 to search through file contents
If you are ready to take a risk, follow the instructions given below to let Windows 10 search for the contents of the file so that it can search for you.
Type index options in the start menu or taskbar search box, press enter to open the index options dialog box. If you cannot start index options in this way, open control panel, change view by to a small icon, and then click index options.
After you start the index options, click the advanced button to open the advanced options.
Switch to the file type tab. Here, under how to index this file section, select the second option titled index properties and file contents.
Finally, click the OK button. You will see a dialog box, “rebuilding the index may take a long time to complete. Some views and search results may not be complete until the rebuild is complete message. Click OK to continue rebuilding windows 10 search and index file contents.
After the rebuild is complete (which may take a few hours), you should be able to search the contents of the file from the search box, as shown in the screenshot at the beginning of this article.