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# What types of filters are available?

The TreeSize file search supports all kinds of filter variants for files and folders.

In addition to standard filters, such as “Name” or “Size”, there are many predefined filter options, some of which are described in this chapter.

## File Type

This option allows you to search for groups of files. TreeSize offers predefined groups for all file types, such as “Audio Files”, “System Files”, or “Office Files and Documents”.

You can edit existing groups or create your own. You can find this option under “Start > Options > General > Filegroups.

## File Content

In addition to file name, fullpath, or owner, you can also search for files that have a specific content. The TreeSize File Search can analyze the textual content of a file and look for a given set of search terms.

If TreeSize finds this text inside of a file, the file is returned by the custom search. This is possible for non-plain text file formats as well, such as PDF, Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word.

Select “File content” as the target for the comparison, or the corresponding variant which is case-insensitive.

### Plain text and IFilter

TreeSize is able to search plain text files very quickly, by traversing them directly on file system level and matching their content to the given search term.

All commonly used file encodings, such as ASCII, Unicode, or UTF-8 are supported.

For more complex file types, such as Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint, TreeSize uses the IFilter interface, which is provided by the operating system.

Any application can register their own filter handler for a specific file type. Some handlers are already shipped alongside with Windows.

An example for such a filter handler is the one that handles document types and allows to read the content of files that are saved in the .docx format.

Other file types, such as PDF, can be read by filter handlers that are installed by PDF reader applications. They are registered during the installation of the PDF reader application and available for TreeSize automatically.

## Path Length

You can use this option to search for files with paths of a certain length, which can help find long paths, for example. Many applications are limited to file paths with a maximum of 260 characters.

This option can be used to find such problematic files.

## Hardlinks

This option allows you to identify files that have already been deduplicated. A file with more than one hardlink indicates that a deduplication has already been performed.

To include only files that have not yet been deduplicated, filter for files with exactly one hardlink. To include deduplicated files, select a filter with at least 2 hardlinks.

## Files

Filters by the number of files in a directory.

## Folders

Filters by the number of sub folders in a directory.

## Dir Level

TreeSize will only search for files that are located within the specified minimum or maximum directory level.

Select “Dir Level (Relative)”, if the directory level should be evaluated relative to the current search path, rather than as absolute level within the file system.

### Example

Search path: “C:\Windows”.

Using “Dir Level (relative)”:

- Level 1: Items that are direct children of the current search path (e.g. C:\Windows\System32).

- Level 2: Items that are located inside of first level items (e.g. C:\Windows\System32\chkdsk.exe)

- etc.

Using “Dir Level”:

- Level 1: Direct children of the current drive (e.g. “C:\file.txt”).

- Level 2: Items that have one parent folder (e.g. “C:\Users\anotherfile.txt”.

- etc.

In most cases, you will want to use “Dir Level (relative)”. In order to skip subfolders and only search the current folder, select `"Dir Level (relative)" = 1`

## Last Modified / Creation Date / Last Accessed

With this option, you can customize a search for files and folders by looking for their last change, last access, or creation date timestamps. Defining a time period can be done by:

### Selecting a time interval (relative to the current date)

- Predefined interval: The most commonly used intervals, such as “Last week”, “This month”, “Last year”, etc. are available as predefined options. They are evaluated in relation to the current date when the search is executed.

- Since X days/weeks/months/years: Select a custom time interval that must have passed since the file/folder was (not) changed / (not) accessed / (not) created.

### Selecting a specific date manually

- Entering only a start date: the filters will only find files/folders with a matching date past the selected date. The selection menu provides checkboxes, which allow to enable, or disable the start and end date of an interval for the search.

- Entering only an end date: the filters will only find files/folders with a matching date before the selected date.

- Entering a full interval: the filters will find only files/folders with a matching date within these boundaries.

## Attributes

Searches for file attributes. You can decide whether they have to be set, or not set.

## Is invalid shortcut

Allows you to search for links without a valid destination. Important: Please note that a link with its destination being a currently unreachable network drive can also be identified as invalid.

## Meta data (More filter types… )

In addition to the predefined set options, TreeSize allows using all available meta data, such as “Last saved by” for office documents, or “tags” for JPEG and Office files. Select “More filter types… “ to open a selection dialog with all available meta data .