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How do you search for files that include "@" in the filename from the search window?

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4 Answers 4

up vote 3 down vote accepted

In Vista:

  • press Win+F to show search window
  • open Advanced search
  • select Location (for example Local Hard Drives)
  • type * @ * in Name field (without spaces between * and @)
  • to narrow search to files select Document in Show only:
  • press Search

Alternatively you can just type following into search box in Windows explorer:

name:*@* kind:docs
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You might also have to tick the tick box: ´Include non-indexed, hidden, and system files (might be slow)´ –  awe Sep 22 '09 at 11:06
Nice hint. I was actually needing that. :D –  elvispt Dec 9 '09 at 20:13

my guess would be to escape it like you would at a command prompt with a caret. e.g. dir *^@.txt

i don't have a machine to try this on right now.


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Best app for file searches I've found is "Everything" - and it's lightning fast. Available at http://www.voidtools.com/ Makes the Windows search look like steam driven.

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Much like with most search engines, you can use " " [quotation marks].
Not perfect, it will still will find other things (not sure why).
Moreover wildcards will be a bit of a problem.

You can narrow it down to files by using "kind:" (docs, music etc'), you can find some syntax help here.

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By the way, this is in Windows 7.

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