Have you ever wanted to search for a file or folder in Windows 7 and had a specific date range in mind? Well, good news, then! Windows 7 Explorer has just the function you’re looking for!
So, open Windows Explorer by going to Start, then typing Explorer in the Search Box. When the results pop up, click Explorer.exe.
Once in Windows Explorer, either hit Ctrl+F or just click the search field in the upper right-hand corner. You’ll notice some filter options along the bottom, like Kind, Date Modified, Type and Name. Type in what you’re looking for in the box and then click Date Modified.
The calendar should pop up. With it, you can search by day, month or from a list of generic timeframes like “Earlier this week” or “A long time ago” . As you specify, your results will pop up on the left side of your Explorer window.
If you want to search a range (for example, from February 2 through February 22), click on the starting date or ending date and drag the cursor across the dates, just as you would select text in a document. If you’re searching dates before or after the beginning of the month, keep dragging and the calendar will move from month to month.
Searching by date made easy!
~Andrew
Tags: Search, windows 7, windows explorer
This was a very helpful hint. I did not realize this function was available.
As I was playing with this function, I noticed a few additional options. First, you can specify a range of dates. If you press shift and click on a date before today, you will set a range from that date to today. If you first click on one date and then press shift and click on a second date, you will set a range from the first date to the second date.
You can also type the search criteria. Type datemodified: followed by a single date or first date..last date. If you type you can even change datemodified to datecreated. There may be a way to point and click datecreated, but I haven’t found that yet.
Again, thank you for a very helpful hint.
Not very user friendly when the date range is big. Try searching for say from 1/1/2010 til 12/31/2010
Searching for files in XP was way, way simplier, faster and a whole lot less frustrating. This “new, improved” process in Windows 7 is for the birds!
I agree with Becky. In fact there is nothing at all about the new file explorer that is better. Why did they have to mess with something that was not broken in the least? I really dislike it.
It’s a very goog hint. Now I use the two periods with keyboard.