Find

The Find internal command can be used to:

 

Command Arguments:

Argument

Type

Possible values

Description

(no argument)

-

-

Display the Find Panel. It will open in whichever mode you last used it.

Example: Find

ADVANCED

/S

(no value)

Display the Find Panel in Advanced mode.

Example: Find ADVANCED

ANYWORD

/S

(no value)

Use when automating Find Files to enable the Any Word option for name searching.

For example, if this was turned on and you used "cat dog" as the NAME argument, Opus would match filenames containing "cat" or "dog" (or both, in any order). This saves you having to construct complicated OR wildcard patterns.

Example: Example: Find NAME="cat dog" ANYWORD RECURSE IN "c:\"

ARCHIVES

/S

(no value)

Search inside archive files (when the Find Files function is being automated).

Example: Find *.doc IN C:\Data ARCHIVES

CLEAR

/O

(no value)

Clear previous results (when the Find Files function is being automated). The output file collection will be cleared before the new Find begins.

Example: Find *.doc IN C:\Data CLEAR

 

 

no

Do not clear previous results.

Example: Find *.doc in C:\Data CLEAR=no

COLLNAME

/K

<collection name>

Specify the name of the file collection that results are added to. If not supplied the default collections (Find Results and Duplicate Files) are used.

Example: Find *.doc in C:\Data COLLNAME Output

COMPUTERS

/S

(no value)

Launch the Windows Search for Computers function (depending on your version of Windows, this may have no effect).

Example: Find COMPUTERS

CONTAINING

/K

<search text>

Specify text to search for (when the Find Files function is being automated). The CONTCASE and CONTWILD arguments can modify how the search text is used.

Example: Find *.txt CONTAINING printf IN C:\SourceCode

CONTCASE

/S

(no value)

Use when automating Find Files to specify that the CONTAINING argument should be treated as case-sensitive, similar to the related checkbox in the UI.

Example: Find *.txt CONTAINING Apple CONTCASE IN C:\Inventory

CONTWILD

/S

(no value)

Use when automating Find Files to specify that the CONTAINING argument should be treated as a wildcard, similar to the related checkbox in the UI.

Example: Find *.txt CONTAINING (foo|bar) CONTWILD IN C:\Things

DELMODE

/S

(no value)

When automating the Duplicate File Finder, activates "delete mode" - once duplicates have been identified, the second and subsequent of each duplicate group will be automatically selected, ready for deletion.

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES DELMODE

DUPES

/S

(no value)

Automates the Duplicate File Finder.

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES

FILTER

/S

(no value)

Indicates that the value of the NAME argument is the name of a pre-defined filter. This lets you automate more complex searches than just those based on filename and containing text.

Example: Find NAME image_files IN C:\Pictures FILTER

IN

/K/M

<search location> ...

Specify the folder or folders to search in when automating a search. Remember that if the paths contain a space you must enclose the value in quotes.

Example: Find *.txt IN "C:\Folder 1" "C:\Folder 2"

LOADPREV

/K

no

Disable the loading of previous find settings when the Find panel opens. By default, the Find panel will remember its previous settings when it opens unless it has been invoked via an automated search (i.e with both IN and NAME arguments specified). Use this argument to prevent the command ever remembering its previous settings.

Example: Find LOADPREV=no

 

 

yes

Force the Find panel to load its previous settings even when opened by an automated search. This does not restore multiple search paths, however - LOADPREV=all must be specified for that.

Example: Find *.txt IN "C:\Folder 1" LOADPREV=yes

 

 

all

Forces the Find panel to remember its previous settings, and also restores all paths that were previously listed in the search list.

Example: Find LOADPREV=all

MD5

/O

(no value)

Search for duplicates using the MD5 checksum (used with the DUPES argument). The default behaviour is to search based on filename and size.

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES MD5

 

 

<percentage>

Only calculate checksums based on a percentage of the file's contents. This can dramatically speed up duplicate checking for large files, at the expense of some accuracy.

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES MD5=75

 

 

cache

Use the checksum cache for large files. If a file's checksum has previously been cached and the file does not appear to have changed, the cached value will be used instead of recalculating its checksum.

Example: Find IN C:\Downloads DUPES MD5=cache,50

NAME

 

<filename>

This is the default argument for the Find command, which means you do not need to use the NAME keyword before it (unless you are searching for a word which is recognized as another argument keyword).

 

Specify the filename or wildcard pattern to search for. To automate the Find Files function you must specify both the NAME argument, and the location to search using the IN argument.

The NOWILD, ANYWORD and NOPARTIAL arguments can be used to control whether or not wildcards, "any word" or partial matching are used when searching names, similar to the checkboxes in the UI.

You can start the wildcard pattern with regex: to use regular expressions instead of wildcards. (Do not specify the NOWILD argument in this case.)

You can also search using a pre-defined filter by providing the filter name for the NAME argument and also specifying the FILTER switch.

Example: Find *.(doc|txt|bmp) IN C:\ RECURSE ARCHIVES

Example: Find regex:foo.+bar\.txt IN C:\ RECURSE

Example: Find NAME="Text File (1).txt" NOWILD IN C:\ RECURSE

 

When used with the DUPES argument, this lets you provide a filename filter for the duplicates search. When used like this, you can specify a regular expression pattern by prefixing the wildcard with the regex: prefix.

Example: Find *.pdf IN C:\Documents RECURSE CLEAR MD5 DUPES

NAMEONLY

/O

(no value)

Search for duplicates based on filename only (used with the DUPES argument). The default behaviour is to search based on filename and size.

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES NAMEONLY

 

 

noext

Search for duplicates based on filename only, ignoring their file extensions.

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES NAMEONLY=noext

NOAUTORUN

/S

(no value)

Normally when both the NAME and IN arguments are provided, the Find Files operation begins automatically. To prevent this, specify the NOAUTORUN argument as well.

Example: Find *.doc IN /mydocuments RECURSE NOAUTORUN

NOPARTIAL

/S

(no value)

Use when automating Find Files to prevent partial name matching (names must then match the pattern you specify exactly).
 

Example: Find *.bak IN "c:\" RECURSE NOPARTIAL

NOWILD

/S

(no value)

Use when automating Find Files to prevent wildcard name matching. Like the similar checkbox in the UI.
 

Example: Find "File (1).txt" IN "c:\" RECURSE NOWILD

NUMBERGROUPS

/S

(no value)

The Duplicate Finder creates groups for each set of duplicate files found, and normally these groups are named after the criteria used for the duplicate search. If you turn this option on then each group of duplicates will be numbered (from 1 to X, in the order they are found).
 

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES MD5 NUMBERGROUPS

OF

/K/M

<file to match> ...

Specifies one or more files to search for duplicates of. If you don't use this argument, all duplicate files in the specified locations will be found. Remember that if the file path you are providing contains spaces, you must enclose the value in quotes.

Example: Find DUPES OF C:\Report.txt IN C:\Backups MD5

QUERY

/K/R

<query string>

Performs a search in the specified location using the Windows Search system.

If used on its own, without other arguments, it is like typing a query string into the search field at the top-right of the lister to search below the current folder. You can also run a Windows Search query on a specified folder or into a custom results collection.

Everything which follows the QUERY argument will be passed to Windows Search as the query string, so it must be the last argument to the command.

Example: Find QUERY filename:*.doc author:"Leo Davidson"
Example: Find IN "C:\Documents" COLLNAME "Leo's Docs" QUERY filename:*.doc author:"Leo Davidson"

RECURSE

/O

(no value)

When automating the Find Files and Duplicate File Finder functions, the search will extend into sub-folders below the specified locations.

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES RECURSE

 

 

no

Prevent the search from extending into sub-folders.

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES RECURSE=no

SAVEQUERY

/S

(no value)

When you are currently viewing the results of a Windows Search query, this command will save the search as a stored query collection.

Example: Find SAVEQUERY

SHOWRESULTS

/K

source

Display the results of the automated search in the current source file display or Lister.

Example: Find *.txt IN C:\ RECURSE SHOWRESULTS=source

 

 

dest

Display the results in the destination file display.

Example: Find *.jpg IN C:\Data SHOWRESULTS=dest

 

 

tab

Display the results in a new tab. You can combine this with the source or dest arguments.

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES RECURSE SHOWRESULTS dest,tab

SIMPLE

/S

(no value)

Display the Find Panel in simple mode.

Example: Find SIMPLE

SIZEONLY

/S

(no value)

Search for duplicates based on file size only (used with the DUPES argument). The default behaviour is to search based on filename and size.

Example: Find IN C:\Data DUPES SIZEONLY