If you don't need advanced sorting: Regular search
Scraped from How do I search?
How do I search?
Enter search terms in the search box that appears in the upper right corner of every page, and press Enter.
If you need to refine and narrow your search, here are some basic tips:
- To search within specific tag(s), enter them in square brackets:
[maintenance] seat
searches for mentions of "seat" within the [maintenance] tag.
- To find a specific phrase, or to search a string of special characters, enter it in quotes: like
"flat tire"
, or "<%#"
.
- To limit your search to just the title of a question, use
title:
followed by the search term. Likewise, search the body only (exclude the title) with body:"phrase here"
.
- To search just your posts:
user:me training
searches all of your posts for the word "training".
- To exclude results from a tag, term or phrase, prefix it with
-
in your query: waffles -unicorns
finds posts that mention tasty batter-based breakfasts without including mythical creatures, while [laurel] -[hardy]
includes only posts pertaining to the first half of the classic comedy couple.
- Use wildcard searches to broaden results; add an asterisk (
*
) anywhere in the word, like encour*
or Ex*nge
.
Advanced Search Options:
We offer a number of advanced search operators to help you find very specific information.
Range Operators
To search for only questions that fall within a particular range for score, number of answers, or number of views, you can enter an upper or lower parameter, or a range.
score:-1
or score:-1..
will both return posts with a score greater than or equal to -1
views:500..1000
or views:500-1000
will return posts with 500 to 1000 views
answers:..3
will return questions with 3 or fewer answers
Dates
You can use specific dates or date ranges to narrow results down to posts created or active within a certain time period, using the following operators:
created:
to specify when the posts were created
lastactive:
for posts active in a specified time period
Dates can be entered in the following formats:
Absolute dates:
- year only – e.g.,
created:2012..2013
searches posts created from January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2013; created:2012
searches posts created from January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2012.
- year and month – e.g.,
created:2012-04..2012-05
searches posts created between April 1, 2012 and May 31, 2012.
- day, month, and year – e.g.,
lastactive:2012-04-03
searches posts who were last active between 12:00 AM on April 3, 2012 and 11:59 PM on April 3, 2012.
Relative dates:
1y
, 1m
, and 1d
are shorthand for "last year", "last month", and "yesterday" - e.g., if today is April 15, created:1m
searches posts created between March 1 and March 31. (You can substitute any number for 1
to look back that many years, months, or days.)
Relative datas in a range (1y..
) look back to the same date in the previous period - e.g., if you want to see all the posts active in the last three months, use lastactive:3m..
On April 15, that will show posts from January 15 up to the most recently active. You can close the range as well: lastactive:3m..1m
.
Please note that all times are recorded in UTC; the results may not match your timezone.
User Operators
You can also limit searches to a specific user's content (your own or someone else's). You will need the user id to search another user's posts.
user:mine
or user:me
(or any user id) returns only your posts (or only the posts from whichever user whose id you entered)
infavorites:mine
(or any user id) returns only questions that you (or the user whose id you entered) have favorited.
intags:mine
returns only posts that appear in tags you have marked as favorite. (If you don't have any tags, this operator does nothing. For better results, update your preferences.)
Boolean Operators
The following search operators can be used with values of yes/no, true/false, or 1/0 (each pair behaves the same):
isaccepted:
yes/true/1 returns only answers that have been marked "accepted"; no/false/0 returns only answers that are not marked accepted.
hascode:
yes/true/1 returns only posts that contain code blocks; no/false/0 returns only posts that contain no code.
hasaccepted:
yes/true/1 returns only questions that have accepted answers; no/false/0 returns only questions with no accepted answers.
isanswered:
yes/true/1 returns only questions that have at least one accepted or positively-scored answer; no/false/0 returns only questions with no accepted or positively-scored answers.
closed:
yes/true/1 returns only questions that are closed; no/false/0 excludes closed questions from the search.
duplicate:
yes/true/1 returns questions that have been marked as a duplicate of another question; no/false/0 excludes duplicate questions from the search.
migrated:
yes/true/1 returns only questions that have been migrated to a different site; no/false/0 excludes migrated questions from the search.
locked:
yes/true/1 returns only locked posts (which have edits, votes, comments, and new answers disabled); no/false/0 returns only posts that are not locked.
hasnotice:
yes/true/1 returns only posts with a notice shown below them; no/false/0 returns only posts that do not have a notice applied.
wiki:
yes/true/1 returns only community wiki posts; no/false/0 returns only non-community wiki posts.
OR operator
To combine results from multiple tags, separate the tag names (enclosed in square brackets) with the word "or": [widgets] or [geegaws]
returns questions tagged with either tag.
Miscellaneous Operators
url:"example.com"
searches for posts containing the url "example.com"
is:question
narrows results down to just questions, and is:answer
returns only answers
inquestion:50691
restricts the search to the question with id 50691. If you are searching using the search box on a question page, you can use inquestion:this
to restrict results to the post you are already viewing.