Besides general Broad Search, Pics.io offers a number of more advanced search mechanisms that you can apply in your work. Using logical operators and wildcards can greatly facilitate your search and make it more versatile.
NEW! Our Syntax Search panel in Pics.io combines the best of the legacy Broad Search and Advanced Search operators into a single, streamlined tool. Its intuitive and user-friendly design makes refining searches faster and more efficient, providing a smoother asset management experience.
ONE-WORD SEARCH
By default, if you simply type in a word in your search query, the system will perform a broad search and come up with miscellaneous results. In other words, the system will look for a wildcard value. For example, you may write the word book in your search query, and the system may find assets titled as facebook, e-book, booking, etc. as all these assets contain the word "book" in them. You may limit your search to assets that exactly match your query using the Exact Match approach as described below.
AND, OR, NOT operators (Boolean Search)
This approach will come in handy when you have a query that contains several search items. Applying this approach will allow you to either narrow down or broaden your search, depending on your goals.
Have a look at the following examples to see how they work:
Imagine you are looking for assets that include the words red, green, and yellow. To do so, you need to type red AND green AND yellow in the search window.
If you want to select between these three words, type red OR green OR yellow.
To use a combination of words alongside AND and OR operators, include the phrases with OR in parentheses. E.g. (yellow OR red) AND (blue OR green).
If you want to exclude one of the variables, use the NOT operator. e.g. red AND yellow NOT green.
You can play around with the variables and change them depending on what you’re looking for. Please note that if you simply type Red AND/OR Yellow, the words may appear individually in search results and, thus, may not be combined the way you want.
NB! Boolean Search is a regular search that shows exact values: prefixed and suffixed values are not included in this type of search.
While searching across multiple collections selected, you can use boolean operators OR and NOT as well. For example "travel OR tourism", or "NOT travel OR NOT tourism" will return all assets that are located in either one or another selected collection.
Performing a search with the operator AND will return a message stating that no assets were found, as this operator is anticipated by default in multiple collection searches.
Check more examples of how search queries should look below:
To find the assets without keywords attached:
NOT _exists_:keywords
To find the assets with keywords attached (at least one keyword);
_exists_:keywords
To find the assets with the keyword 'Sun'
keywords:Sun
To find assets without the keyword 'Sun':
NOT keywords:Sun
💡 Tip: If your keywords consist of multiple words separated by spaces or other symbols (e.g., "New Keyword"), please ensure to replace the space or symbol with '?' in the query, as shown in the example below:
(keywords:New?Keyword) OR (keywords:Old?Keyword), where '?' replaces the space in this instance.
Alternatively, enclose your keyword in quotation marks, resulting in a query like this:
keywords:"New Keyword" OR keywords:"Old Keyword"
To find assets containing a specific custom field value:
meta.Products:clothing , where:
- Products is the name of the Custom Field;
- clothing is the exact value of the Custom Field you would like to search within.
To find assets without a specific custom field value:
NOT meta.Products:clothing (follow the same logic as in the example above).
To find assets with a meta field name (not the exact value of it) within one of the Custom Fields.
_exists_:meta.ExposureMode (where ExposureMode is the name of a field within EXIF metadata Custom Field).
To find the assets with the keyword 'Sun' and all the keywords which contain this word (e.g. Sun1, Sun-1)
keywords:Sun*
To find the asset with the 'Sun' comment left within the Activity panel:
comments.text:Sun
To find the assets that contain the word 'Sun' in a comment left within the Activity panel:
comments.text:Sun*
To find assets with a specific custom field value
_exists_:comments
To find assets with comments
meta.Color:R010
To find the assets with a specific value of a custom field and all the values which contain this word (R010, R011 or R01111123)
meta.Color:R0*
To find the assets with the keyword 'Sun' and custom field 'Color' with the value 'R010'
keywords:Sun AND meta.Color:R010
To find the assets with the keyword 'Sun' OR custom field 'Topic' with the value 'Sun' AND custom field 'Color' with the value 'R01'
(keywords:Sun* OR meta.Topic:Sun) AND (meta.Color:R010 OR meta.Color:R1*)
To find all assets except video files (e.g. exclude files in .mp4 and .mov formats) use the 'NOT mimeType:' operator
NOT mimeType:"video/mp4" AND NOT mimeType:"video/quicktime"
EXACT MATCH
If you want to find the exact match (phrase) to your query, please use quotes before and after the query, e.g. “High Falls Waterfall”. The Boolean method (i.e. logical operators) applies to exact phrases as well.
WILDCARDS
Wildcards are generally used to fill in a missing symbol or a number of symbols in the search query. It helps a lot when you are not entirely sure about the exact spelling of a word. No problem. The system is able to identify the missing piece.
Here is how Wildcards work in Pics.io:
Wildcard characters are usually an asterisk (*) and/or a question mark (?). An asterisk represents one or more symbols, while a question mark represents only one symbol.
Wildcards can go in the beginning/end of the symbol(s) and in the middle.
It is possible to have several wildcard symbols in one search.
Wildcards do not recognize spaces. They can only be used with non-space words.
Wildcards can be used together with Boolean search and exact match to a phrase method in Pics.io.
Wildcards recognize hyphens (-) in words.
Wildcards are not supported within the phrase search queries.
In case you remember one word from the filename or from keywords, wildcards can speed up the process of searching for such assets. If you want to locate all the assets that contain the word "blue" in a filename, your search query should look like this:
name:*blue*
The system will find all the files inside your Pics.io library with this word in the filename (e.g. "blue_sky.jpg", "Short blue skirt.png" etc.).
Here is an example: Searching for the word Waterfall and applying both wildcard options
As you can see, advanced search mechanisms greatly enlarge the search possibilities in Pics.io. Furthermore, you can also search your assets by metadata.
SEARCHING FOR ASSIGNED USERS
You can also filter your search by assigned users. You may need this in order to check how many tasks are assigned to particular members of your team and which of your team payers have more workload than the others.
To do so, you can enter your teammate’s email address in the search window like this:
assignees.email:username@email.com
And with a click of a button, you’ll get all the assets that were assigned to this user.
To locate assets that are not assigned to anyone on your Pics.io team, use the following search query:
NOT _exists_:assignees
SEARCHING FOR APPROVED ASSETS
There are several possible scenarios here:
To find approved assets, type approved:true in the search window.
To find disapproved assets, type approved:false in the search window.
To assets that were either approved or disapproved, type _exists_:approved in the search window.
To find assets that were neither approved nor disapproved yet, type NOT _exists_:approved in the search window.
SEARCHING FOR ATTACHED ASSETS
There are cases when it's needed to find assets that reside in several collections simultaneously. Supposing you'd like to detach them and leave the original one only in the original collection. To briefly locate such files follow the next steps:
choose the root collection within a tree of collections (the "highest" directory in the hierarchy) so that you see the greyed-out "Search all collections" text within a search field;
enter the following query in the search field:
(tags.path:\/root\/Collection1*) AND (tags.path:\/root\/Collection2*) ,
where Collection1 and Collection2 are the names of the collections you'd like to search common assets for.
The search results will show assets attached to Collection1 and Collection2 at the same time.
It's possible to extend the list of collections you'd like to search common assets for just by adding AND (tags.path:\/root\/Collection3*) to the query.
NB! If a collection name consists of several parts (e.g. "First Collection"), including spaces or other symbols dividing them, make sure to add ? to the query instead of that symbol/space like in the example below:
(tags.path:\/root\/Collection1*) AND (tags.path:\/root\/First?Collection*) , where ? replaces the space in this case.
SEARCHING BY TITLE/DESCRIPTION
If you need to locate all the assets which don't have Title or it has been set up before, but then removed, your search query should look in the following way:
title.lowercase:"" OR NOT (_exists:title)
In the same way you can search for assets with empty Description field:
description.lowercase:"" OR NOT (_exists:description)
SEARCHING BY RATINGS
Here are some examples of how the search string should look like if you want to search by ratings:
rating:>=3 — assets with 3+ rating;
rating:[2 TO 4] — assets with ratings from 2 to 4;
rating:{2 TO 4} — assets with ratings from 2 to 4, but not including assets rated exactly with 2 or 4;
rating:(1 OR >=4) — assets with a rating of 1 or 4+.
You can certainly narrow down your search by specifying keywords, collections, color etc.
SEARCHING BY RANGES
If you need to search for assets by file size, for example, it's possible to use queries with ranges. Please note that the file size is indicated in bytes. So your search query will look like the following:
fileSize: [3185728 TO 5194304] - you want to locate files from 3185.728 Kb to 5194.304 Kb.
TEXTS AND NUMBERS
To perform search by metadata, whose values are written as texts or numbers, please use the following formula:
meta.CustomFieldName:SearchQuery
Let us give you a couple of examples to illustrate how it works.
Example 1. You need to find assets that were created by artists from Canada. You and your team have agreed to save this kind of info in the custom field called CreatorCountry. In this case, your search query will look like this:
meta.CreatorCountry:Canada
Example 2. You want to find all images with a width of more than 1000px. You have a default custom field ImageWidth, so your search query will look like this:
meta.ImageWidth:>1000
CHECKBOXES
Sometimes you may want to find assets by a custom field that has the form of a checkbox. For example, you have a checkbox called OriginalMedia, which can be checked or unchecked. If you need to retrieve all assets that belong to original media (i.e. the checkbox is checked), you search query will look like this:
meta.OriginalMedia: true
To search for checkboxes that were not enabled, simply type NOT before your search query.
NOT meta.OriginalMedia: true
If you'd like to find the assets which have had this very checkbox enabled before, but now they don't, the search string should look like:
meta.OriginalMedia: false
SEARCHING BY DATES
Searching for assets by custom fields that contain dates (e.g. PublishDate or ModifyDate) is not an uncommon task. Here are some ideas how you can make your search more versatile and efficient.
Let’s take custom field PublishDate for example, which contains a date saved in the local date format.
If you’re looking for the exact date, your query will look like this: meta.PublishDate: 2017-01-01
You can search by a date range as well, e.g. meta.PublishDate:[2015-01-01 TO 2015-12-31]
If you want to search by a date range until the present day, use the word NOW in the lower case. e.g. meta.PublishDate:[2015-01-01 TO now]
To find inclusive dates, use brackets [...] in your query, e.g. PublishDate:[2015-01-01 TO 2015-12-30]
To find exclusive dates, use braces {...}, e.g. meta.PublishDate:{2015-01-01 TO 2015-12-30} Pics.io will retrieve assets published between January 2 and December 29.
If you put an asterisk (*) instead of the date after TO, meaning that there is no end date to your search, e.g. meta.PublishDate:[2015-01-01 TO *]
For example, you want to search assets by the Creation Date. This information is parsed from your file metadata and will be available in the meta field 'CreateDate' (EXIF group). If you need to find all the files created after 2014, then your search query should look in the following way:
meta.CreateDate:[2014-01-01 TO now]
Alternatively, you can use this search query:
meta.CreateDate:[2014-08-14 TO *]
NB! Searches by time are based on your time zone, which can be configured under My Account > Settings. These settings apply individually to each user.
LIST SEARCH
If you need to search for the assets by a specific value from the list, in the search field type:
meta.ListName:Option1
In case you need to find all the assets where this custom field with the List type is empty or never set, the search query should look like the following:
NOT _exists_:meta.ListName
As well, you may search for the assets where List custom field has existed before, but now is set to empty. The search string should be:
meta.ListName.keyword:"
How can I search for landscape or portrait image?
That's easy! There is an EXIF metadata field which is called Orientation. To locate it, just open any asset in preview, click on the Infopanel on the top right corner and scroll to the EXIF metadata. If this information has been parsed from your file to Pics.io, you'll be able to search by this field. In case you need to find landscapes, just type in the search filter Horizontal. If you want to locate portraits in your Pics.io library, search for Vertical orientation.
Combine searches
Use operators AND, OR, and specify metadata search queries to achieve as exact a result as possible.
meta.ImageHeight:>1000 AND meta.ImageWidth:<1000
Explanation: the query will return assets with ImageHeight value that is less than 1000 and ImageWidth value that is also less than 1000 at the same time.
If you want to learn more about filter panel search options and refining searches quickly and efficiently, check out our Comprehensive Guide to Syntax Search in Pics.io. This guide provides detailed instructions on how to use syntax-based searches effectively.
Moreover, you can take advantage of the Visual Search functionality that allows you to search for your assets based on the actual visual content of images instead of metadata.