Help:Searching

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Commons' search engine generally works the same as the search engine on Wikipedia. For help with using the search engine, you can visit the English Wikipedia search help page (which is particularly detailed), or the same help page on other Wikipedias. For further information see mw:Help:CirrusSearch or, specifically for the default MediaSearch, mw:Help:MediaSearch.

intitle: and prefix: and other search options are activated on Commons search. Note especially the file properties search options. Also note that the prefixes are case sensitive; for example, a capital letter I in Incategory:"Cats" will not work.

• Find pages whose title contains fine line: intitle:"fine line"
  • Note: non-alphanumeric characters are ignored, so instead of -intitle:"LL-Q" use regex -intitle:/LL\-Q/
• Find pages in file space whose title starts with the three letters c o w: prefix:file:cow
• A search for 'shark' videos: shark filetype:video
• A search for 'flower' where the files are 16 bit: flower filebits:16
• A search for 'stars' where the files are PDFs: stars filemime:pdf
• Find files that are not directly in Category:Musicals, but are directly in category Category:1920: incategory:"1920" -incategory:"musicals"
  
  • Note, the minus symbol is part of the prefix; do not insert a space between the minus symbol and the rest of the text.
• Find files that are not in Category:Our World in Data or any of its subcategories, but contain Our World in Data in the file description: -deepcategory:"Our World in Data" "Our World in Data"
  
• Find videos of the Eiffel Tower which are not in Category:Eiffel Tower: "eiffel tower" filetype:video -incategory:"eiffel tower"
  • Note, results will include videos from sub-categories of Category:Eiffel Tower.
• Find pages in Help namespace, whose title, text, or media content contains exactly the phrase panorama: help: "panorama"
  • You can search in a namespace non searched by default by prepending your keyword with the name of the namespace (function provided by mw:Extension:SearchExtraNS since 2013-02-25).
• Find images copied from Pixabay that do not have included the template {{Pixabay}}, the search is intentionally limited to File namespace: file: incategory:"images from pixabay" -hastemplate:pixabay
  • Background: Several technical categories are intended to be only added to a file by inclusion of the appropriate template.
• Example use-cases (filter combinations): latest audio files that are not pronunciation files or short sounds

To search using structured data statements, use the keyword haswbstatement. For example, if you wanted to find all instances of depicts (P180) a Q146, use: haswbstatement:P180=Q146. To find all instances of copyright license (P275) Creative Commons CC0 License (Q6938433), use: haswbstatement:P275=Q6938433.

There are two ways to search this site: the SpecialSearch and the MediaSearch.

It is generally recommended to use the newer MediaSearch which has a wall-of-images view and is the default since 2021 when entering a search phrase in the top right search bar.

In the MediaSearch one can use ctrl+click to open images directly in a new tab or click on an image to view a preview in the "quick view" sidepanel with the file description. However, one currently can't use the cat-a-lot tool to mass-categorize files from its result page and doesn't have the advanced search input form so the SpecialSearch still has its use. One can switch to the special search by clicking on "Switch to Special:Search" in the top right of the search page.

• Petscan gadget – Adds a link to the PetScan tool under "More" at the top right of a category page. Allows to combine several categories and exclude results from other categories and further ways to filter and combine categories. (be aware that some categories are quite incomplete and some contain offtopic subcategories or subcategories with a large number of files)
• Long image and file names in categories can be activated in preferences in the gadget tab

Partly dysfunctional

• Intersections of categories can be shown by default gadget Help:FastCCI – one can use it with the button that says "Good pictures" at the top right of category pages. It can also show all highlighted media in a category and its subcategories in a wall of images and several related things (it often does not work)
• Help:Gadget-DeepcatSearch (enable it here) adds a search link under "More" at the top right of a category page to view all files in a category and its subcategories as a wall of images via the MediaSearch (it often does not work)

Dysfunctional / absent

• Intersections of categories and subcategories and keywords via Deepcat Gadget (info)

Proposed

• Commons:Requests for comment/improving search
• A date range filter

• Help:Image searching
• Commons:Simple media reuse guide
• mw:User:Rainman/search internals
• Commons:Editor's index to Commons#Search (COM:EIC#Search) – more search-related entries in the Editor’s index
• Commons:Categories#Tools – search through categories
• Unsolved code issues about the Commons search in the phabricator issue tracker