Search for Files

You can search or filter files with the files.list method of the Drive API. These methods accept the q parameter which is a search query combining one or more search clauses. Each search clause is made up of three parts.

Field

Attribute of the file that is searched, e.g., the attribute name of the file.

Operator

Test that is performed on the data to provide a match, e.g., contains.

Value

The content of the attribute that is tested, e.g. the name of the file My cool document.

Combine clauses with the conjunctions and or or, and negate the query with not.

Fields

Field	Value Type	Operators	Description
name	string	contains^1, =, !=	Name of the file.
fullText	string	contains^2	Full text of the file including name, description, content, and indexable text.
mimeType	string	contains, =, !=	MIME type of the file.
modifiedTime	date^3	<=, <, =, !=, >, >=	Date of the last modification of the file.
viewedByMeTime	date^3	<=, <, =, !=, >, >=	Date that the user last viewed a file.
trashed	boolean	=, !=	Whether the file is in the trash or not.
starred	boolean	=, !=	Whether the file is starred or not.
parents	collection	in	Whether the parents collection contains the specified ID.
owners	collection	in	Users who own the file.
writers	collection	in	Users who have permission to modify the file.
readers	collection	in	Users who have permission to read the file.
sharedWithMe	boolean	=, !=	Files that have been shared with the authorized user.
properties	collection	has	Public custom file properties.
appProperties	collection	has	Private custom file properties.

[1] The contains operator only performs prefix matching for a name. For example, the name "HelloWorld" would match for name contains 'Hello' but not name contains 'World'.

[2] The contains operator only performs matching on entire string tokens for fullText. For example, if the full text of a doc contains the string "HelloWorld" only the query fullText contains 'HelloWorld' returns a result. Queries such as fullText contains 'Hello' do not return results in this scenario.

[3] The contains operator will match on an exact alphanumeric phrase if it is surrounded by double quotes. For example, if the fullText of a doc contains the string "Hello there world", then the query fullText contains '"Hello there"' will return a result, but the query fullText contains '"Hello world"' will not. Furthermore, since the search is alphanumeric, if the fullText of a doc contains the string "Hello_world", then the query fullText contains '"Hello world"' will return a result.

[4] Fields of type date are not currently comparable to each other, only to constant dates.

Value types

Value Type	Notes
String	Surround with single quotes '. Escape single quotes in queries with \', e.g., 'Valentine\'s Day'.
Boolean	true or false.
Date	RFC 3339 format, default timezone is UTC, e.g., 2012-06-04T12:00:00-08:00.

Operators

Operator	Notes
contains	The content of one string is present in the other.
=	The content of a string or boolean is equal to the other.
!=	The content of a string or boolean is not equal to the other.
<	A date is earlier than another.
<=	A date is earlier than or equal to another.
>	A date is later than another.
>=	A date is later than or equal to another.
in	An element is contained within a collection.
and	Return files that match both clauses.
or	Return files that match either clause.
not	Negates a search clause.
has	A collection contains an element matching the parameters.

For compound clauses, you can use parentheses to group clauses together. For example:

modifiedTime > '2012-06-04T12:00:00' and (mimeType contains 'image/' or mimeType contains 'video/')

This search returns all files with an image or video MIME type that were last modified after June 4, 2012. Because and and or operators are evaluated from left to right, without parentheses the above example would return only images modified after June 4, 2012, but would return all videos, even those before June 4, 2012.

Examples

All examples on this page show the unencoded q parameter, where name = 'hello' is encoded as name+%3d+%27hello%27. Client libraries handle this encoding automatically.

Search for files with the name "hello"

name = 'hello'

Search for folders using the folder-specific MIME type

mimeType = 'application/vnd.google-apps.folder'

Search for files that are not folders

mimeType != 'application/vnd.google-apps.folder'

Search for files with a name containing the words "hello" and "goodbye"

name contains 'hello' and name contains 'goodbye'

Search for files with a name that does not contain the word "hello"

not name contains 'hello'

Search for files containing the word "hello" in the content

fullText contains 'hello'

Search for files not containing the word "hello" in the content

not fullText contains 'hello'

Search for files containing the exact phrase "hello world" in the content

fullText contains '"hello world"'
fullText contains '"hello_world"'

Search for files with a query containing the "" character (e.g., "\authors")

fullText contains '\\authors'

Search for files writeable by the user "[e-mail]"

'[e-mail]' in writers

Search for the ID 1234567 in the parents collection. This finds all files and folders located directly in the folder whose ID is 1234567.

'1234567' in parents

Search for the alias ID appDataFolder in the parents collection. This finds all files and folders located directly under the Application Data folder.

'appDataFolder' in parents

Search for files writeable by the users "[e-mail]" and "[e-mail]"

'[e-mail]' in writers and '[e-mail]' in writers

Search for files containing the text "important" which are in the trash

fullText contains 'important' and trashed = true

Search for files modified after June 4th 2012

modifiedTime > '2012-06-04T12:00:00'    // default time zone is UTC
modifiedTime > '2012-06-04T12:00:00-08:00'

Search for files shared with the authorized user with "hello" in the name

sharedWithMe and name contains 'hello'

Search for files with a custom file property named additionalID with the value 8e8aceg2af2ge72e78.

appProperties has { key='additionalID' and value='8e8aceg2af2ge72e78' }