When I use the search function in Nautilus it only returns files with matching file names. It doesn't even support wildcards. For example, "*.txt" doesn't return anything. I would expect it to return all .txt files.
Anyway, is there a way, without using the command line, to search the contents of files, including all plain text files (.txt, .html, .css, .js, .c, .csv, .sh, .py, …), archives (.zip, .7z, .rar, .tar, …), office/libreoffice files (.doc, .docx, pptx, .odf, .ods, …), and media (.mp3, .mp4, …) meta data? The search should also have the option of setting file size, date, type, and being case insensitive.
Best Answer
When you use
Nautilus, just click search from the top level of your home folder (i.e. where you can see all your folders laid out) and in the search box only enter.pdf(or whatever extension like.txtthat you want to find). That's what I do and it just returned me all the pdfs in my home folder. You don't need to use a wildcard or put quotes around the search term in Nautilus search, unlike when you use search programs on the command line.The
gnome-search-toolcan be used to search within files- select the home folder or the directory to be searched and then clickselect more options, and input your search term where it says'contains the text.' It can be quite slow as it works without an index, but I have used it several times and it has been useful for basic searches.