Windows 11 Search bar

[#1]

I'm struggling to search two drives with many varied files to find all videos but not folders or photos. Good info on achieving this is hard-to-come-by.

So far I have tried;

(NOT kind:folder AND NOT kind:pic) (path: h:*) OR (path: i:*)

kind:NOT folder AND (kind:video OR kind:pics AND  (path: h:*) OR (path: i:*))
kind:NOT folder AND (kind:video AND kind:NOT pics (path: h:*) OR (path: i:*))

Using kind:NOT folder AND (kind:video OR kind:pics AND (path: h:*) OR (path: i:*) does as expected by finding all videos and photos in drives I and H but now I want to exclude all photos.

I have also tried with various use of brackets to no avail.

Any help really appreciated, thanks.

[#2]

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@Mav wrote:

I'm struggling to search two drives with many varied files to find all videos but not folders or photos.

... Using kind:NOT folder AND (kind:video OR kind:pics AND (path: h:*) OR (path: i:*) does as expected by finding all videos and photos in drives I and H but now I want to exclude all photos.

I have also tried with various use of brackets to no avail.

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Not an expert in such things (as you know!) but if I was searching for something I'd be inclined to identify the likely file-formats of video files and create the search on that basis (so you're searching for specifics rather than having to exclude other files).

Just did a search for 'video file suffixes' at duckduckgo and got the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_file_format which lists a surprising number of potential suffixes. The only one I've ever used is .mp4 (recording down stuff with obs studio) but even if you have a wide variety of suffixes it should (I'd have thought) be relatively easy to list them within your search term.

I've never used sophisticated search formats such as those you mentioned (usually just *.php or *.xls or whatever, on the C drive) but hopefully it would be straightforward to create the requisite search (like your one above) just for the identified specifics.

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[#3]

Thanks @Penny,

From my understanding using kind:video will look for all known video types so no suffixes needed.

[#4]

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@Mav wrote:

From my understanding using kind:video will look for all known video types so no suffixes needed.

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Didn't know that.  Still learning as I go

... so something like kind:video AND (path: h:*) OR (path: i:*) would/should work (?)

Oh wow.  Just tried that in Windows Explorer (have two external drives F+G for the .mp4 files) and it listed all of them.

Windows 10 here, mind you, but don't see any reason why that search shouldn't work on Windows 11 (?)

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[#5]

Excellent result but not happening like that here.

But finally solved it by putting the paths before the kind;

(path: h:\*) OR (path: i:\*) kind:videos

Both h and I drives are external.

There's more information here but does tend to lack decent examples.

[#6]

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@Mav wrote:

Excellent result but not happening like that here.

But finally solved it by putting the paths before the kind;

(path: h:\*) OR (path: i:\*) kind:videos

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@Mav   Interesting that the kind:video AND (path: h:*) OR (path: i:*) didn't work for you.

... in point of fact, I discovered after having posted message #4 above, that the search had also brought up other results including an .exe and a .pdf 😕    Didn't feel inclined to muddy the waters by disclosing that at the time, so waited to see how the thread progressed.

Today after having read what you'd posted above, it occurred to me that [usually] I would have 'grouped' the external-hard-drive options with a further bracket, as with kind:video AND ((path: h:*) OR (path: i:*)).

Just tried that with F and G (the two relevant external hard-drives here) and it listed all the .mp4 files on both drives  

... ie no other non-video files.

Just tried what you used - (path: F:\*) OR (path: G:\*) kind:videos - and got the same output as with

kind:video AND ((path: F:*) OR (path: G:*)) as above.

Only thing I *would* say, though, is that Windows Explorer "kept looking" (for over a minute), even after it had retrieved all the files.  Just tried *.mp4 AND ((path: F:*) OR (path: G:*)) and same outcome.

However just using search for (say) *.mp4 on drive F - instant result.  So I'd be inclined to use a more-straightforward search wherever possible, I guess.

Still not entirely sure why (path: F:\*) OR (path: G:\*) kind:videos [ie kind:video at end] would work (to select only the video files) without brackets around the pathF-or-pathG stuff, yet kind:video AND (path: F:*) OR (path: G:*) did not.

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[#7]

The search can be very quick if just on one drive.

Like you one of my searches, can't remember which, kept including just two video files from the J drive on which are over 5700 video files.