Phials documentation
Developer docs

Search

Search helps you find files by name or by text inside them, across the current folder or your entire home directory, without digging through the tree manually.

  • Click Search on the path bar, or press ⌘F (macOS) or Ctrl+F (Windows/Linux).
  • Search opens as a panel in the Navigator area on the left.

You need at least one file explorer tab open to search This Folder. If no file browser is available, switch scope to All files or open a tab first.

  1. Type in the Search files… field.
  2. Choose what to search:
    • This Folder: scope is the active pane’s current path (optionally including subfolders, as described under Recursive below).
    • All files: scope is your home directory tree.
  3. Choose Filenames or File Content.
  4. Results update shortly after you type. Click Run to search immediately.

Results appear in the search panel with filename, parent folder, size, and modified date. File content hits also show a line preview when available.

Narrow results

Expand Filters in the search panel for everyday refinements:

  • Match mode: Simple (substring), Glob (*.jpg), or Regex. Glob is not available for content search.
  • Recursive: when scope is This Folder, include subdirectories.
  • Case sensitive, Hidden (dotfiles), and .gitignore toggles.
  • Dates: filter by modified or created range.
  • Tags: filter by tag labels from your Vials (tags apply only to files inside known Vials).

For operators, scopes, saved searches, and how search uses caches, see Advanced search.

Work with results

  • Single-click a result to select it in the active file pane and open its preview.
  • Double-click to open the file the same way you would from the file list (navigate folders or open previews as usual).
  • Right-click for the usual file context menu.

Use the mirror toggle in the results header to show results in the active file pane. This helps when you want the full file browser chrome on matches.

Clear resets the query and results.

When you reuse the same filters often:

  1. Set up scope, target, and filters.
  2. Click Save… and name the configuration.
  3. Load it later from Load saved….

Use Manage to pin, rename, duplicate, reorder, or delete saved searches.