How to Search for NAS files from Windows File Explorer

Full-text search is available for QNAP NAS shared folders directly within Windows File Explorer when the contents of the NAS are indexed by Qsirch.

Setting up

1. Find and install Qsirch in the App Center.
   
2. Open Qsirch and it will start indexing your NAS files as a background task. The process status can be seen on the top right task status icon. When the task is completed, the full-text search capability is ready.
3. (Optional) To search for text within images, you must index the files with OCR technology. This setting can be enabled before your first-time index or within Qsirch Settings. This indexing process is computationally intensive and will take a longer time than a normal file indexing process.
   

Search from Windows File Explorer

1. Connect the NAS shared folders to your PC (check the user guide for “Mapping a Shared Folder on a Windows Computer”). Or directly open File Explorer in Windows and enter “\\” followed by the IP address of your NAS.
   
2. Use the search field in the top-right of File Explorer and results from the NAS will be displayed. Settings within the Search Tools tab can filter your results.
   
   
   (search field)
   
   
   
   (search results)
   
   
   
   (“Date modified” filter)
3. Each filter is also a command in the search field. For example, when you select “picture” in the Kind filter, in the search field it displays the command “kind:picture”. Some commands are supported and others are not supported.
   • Supported commands:
     

     No.	Search Type	Example
     1	Space	QNAP version
     2	AND	pdf AND txt
     3	OR	pdf OR txt
     4	name	name:qnap
     5	extension	extension:txt

     
     
     The following commands do not support the full-text search for the contents in NAS shared folders.
   • Unsupported commands:
     

     No.	Search Type	Example
     1	title	title:bible
     2	wildcard	jes?s
     3	width	width:1600
     4	folderpath	folderpath:wsp
     5	type	type:txt
     6	NOT	NOT god
     7	quotation marks	"is this"
     8	parentheses	(is this)
     9	tags	tags:first
     10	folder	folder:gun
     11	Full width	Ｆｕｌｌ　ｗｉｄｔｈ
     12	Special character	( ) + - = " > < ._ ` { } [ ] ; , \

Example Scenario

If you have enabled advanced image indexing, you can also find image files based on text within the image.

For example, search for “network” and select “Picture” in the Kind filter in the Search Tools tab. In this example, a screenshot image that contains the text “network” is returned.

Reference

• The file format supported by the “Kind” filter: