Faceted Search & Advanced Search
Faceted search lets you add filters to any search to narrow the result set — by file type, date, folder, size, tags, and more, alone or in combination with a text or visual query.
Applying filters
Open search and click the filter icon in the search bar to expand the search options. From there:
- Quick Filters — one-click chips for the common cases: Folders, PDFs, Images, Audio, Video, Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Text, Links, plus Recently Uploaded, Recently Viewed, and Recently Edited (each scoped to the last 7 days).
- Filter — pick any filterable property and build a condition on it.
- Tags — filter to files carrying a specific tag, with autocomplete.
- Locations — scope the search to a folder. Choose between In folder and subfolders or Only in folder.
- Similarity — search by color similarity (pick a color) or content similarity (pick a reference file). See Searching by file and Searching by color.
- Sort — order results by any sortable property.
Each applied filter appears as a chip in the expanded panel; click a chip's × to remove it. Filters combine — for example: PDFs, tagged red:urgent, modified in the last week, under your Legal folder.
What you can filter on
The Filter menu exposes every filterable property, with operators suited to its type:
| Property kind | Properties | Operators |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Name, MIME type, media type, notes, generation metadata (prompt, model, source, seed) | exists, equals, not equals, contains, starts with |
| Dates | Created, modified, accessed, added, edited | before, on/before, after, on/after |
| Numbers | File size, rating, pages, duration, width/height, physical dimensions | greater/less than (or equal) |
| Tags | Tags | has tag |
| Location | Folder | in folder, in folder and subfolders |
| Similarity | Color, file content | near color(s), near file |
Power-user filtering from the terminal
There's no inline filter syntax in the search box — the query text is always searched as-is. For expressive, scriptable filters, the CLI's poly search exposes every facet as a flag:
# PDFs modified in the last week, under a folder, rated 4+
poly search --include-type pdf --modified-after "7 days ago" \
--under //Home/legal --rating-gte 4
# Semantic query plus filters
poly search "signed lease" --smart --include-type pdf --size-gt 1MB
Saved searches
A search worth repeating can be saved as a saved search, a special file that lives in your folder tree like a smart folder. Opening it runs its definition and shows the current matches; it stays up to date as your files change, and like any file it can be renamed, moved, tagged, and shared.
Create one from the terminal with poly mksearch:
poly mksearch //Home --title "Recent PDFs" --include-type pdf --modified-after "7 days ago"