Search for an item

Current version: 10.3

In Sitecore, you can search for an item in a number of ways:

  • From the Content Editor:

    • In the content area on a Search tab, where the search runs through the selected item only.

    • In the content tree, where the search runs through all the items in the content tree, starting from the selected item.

  • From the Experience Editor:

    • In the Navigate to Item dialog box, where the search runs through all the items in your Sitecore installation.

This topic outlines how to:

Search for an item in the Content Editor or the Experience Editor

Important

When you run a search in the Content Editor on a Search tab, you only search through the descendants of the selected item. In the Experience Editor, the search runs through all the items across all your Sitecore websites.

To search for an item:

  1. Open the Content Editor or the Experience Editor:

    • In the Content Editor, in the content tree, navigate to the item that you want to run your search from. In the editing pane, click Search  to open a new search tab.

      The Search icon on the Search tab in the Content Editor.
      Note

      If you select an item bucket, the Search tab opens by default.

    • In the Experience Editor, on the ribbon, click the search icon to open the Navigate to Item dialog box, where you can search among all the Sitecore items.

      The Search icon on the ribbon in the Experience Editor.
  2. In the Search field, enter the keywords that characterize the items that you want to search for, or build a query.

    Tip

    In the Search field, you can enter * to search for all available items — in the Content Editor, this means all the descendants of the selected item and in the Experience Editor, this means all items in your Sitecore installation.

  3. Press Enter or click Search .

  4. To filter the search results, use the facets to the right of the search results, and to change the view of the results, you can click one of the view buttons to the right of the Search field.

    Note

    If you change the view, the search is launched again based only on the keywords and filters in the Search field.

    Note that in the search results, a clone is greyed-out and represented with an indent.

    The Search results containing a clone and the original item.
  5. To open an item from the search results:

    • In the Content Editor, click the title of the item to open it in a new tab.

      The search results in the Content Editor.
    • In the Experience Editor, select the item and click OK. The Experience Editor then redirects to the page where the selected item is located.

      Tip

      If you are working on multiple websites, you can search for an item on another website and use this search functionality to redirect to the Experience Editor from one site to another.

      The Navigate to Item dialog box in the Experience Editor.
  6. Alternatively, you can perform certain operations on all the items directly from the search. To perform an operation on all the search result items, click the down arrow to the left of the search field, expand Search Operations, and select the operation that you want to perform on all your search results.

    The list of search operations on the Search tab.

Search for an item from the content tree in the Content Editor

If you want to do a quick and simple search through the content tree, you can use the search function associated with the content tree in the Content Editor.

Note

The search runs through the entire content tree starting from the selected item. This means that the search results found at the starting point are listed first.

To search for an item using the content tree search:

  1. In the content tree, select the item that you want to start the search from.

  2. In the Search field, enter the keyword that you want to search for. This can be any character, number, word, and so on.

    The Search field in the content tree.
  3. Click Search  or press ENTER to perform the search.

Add a criterion to a search from the content tree in the Content Editor

If you need to search in a specific field or for more than just one item or keyword, you can, from the drop-down menu, perform a search in a specific field and add more criteria to the search.

To add a criterion to your search:

  1. In the content tree, select the item that you want to start the search from.

  2. In the Search field, click the drop-down arrow.

    The Search pane expanded to show the Name field and the Add Criteria field.
  3. To perform a search only in the items' Name field, in the Name field, enter the name of the item you want to search for.

    If you want to search in a different field, click Name, and in the drop-down menu that appears, all the fields in the current item are displayed. Click the field that you want to search in and enter the relevant search word.

    The Search pane and the list of fields to select from.
  4. To add a custom criterion, in the Add Criteria field, enter the name of the criterion and then click Add Criteria.

    The Search pane with a custom filter field.

    You can click the name of the criterion to change it to one of the predefined criteria.

  5. Enter the value for the custom criterion and press ENTER. To remove the criterion, click the criterion name and then click Remove at the bottom of the menu that appears.

  6. To open a search result in the content area, click a search result.

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