On a shared LAN-drive I want use special keywords within brackets in the names of files and folders to flag them for later automated tidying actions. e.g. :
- {bin} as a name for a folder that serves as a local trash.
- {temp} for temporary files or folders.
- {a2024} for a file or folder that ought to be archived in 2024
- {z2024-10} for a file or folder that ought to be compressed (zipped) after October 2024
- {d2024-10-25} for a file or folder that ought to be deleted after October, 25th, 2024.
I put these flags keywords within brackets for a mere reason : nobody ever use brackets in file or folder names.
I developed this method with my Linux desktop. Then, using the file explorer to find these flagged files and folders is easy.
But I have troubles with doing the same with Windows 10 file explorer.
Problem 1 : hard drive vs network drives
In the search field, to find all the flagged files and folders, i.e. all items with a couple of opening and closing brackets, I type "*{*}* . More simply, I can use "*{* to find all items matching an opening bracket.
This works on my local hard drive but does not work and the shared
Problem 2 : being more selective
If I wish to search for all the items that ought to be archived, i.e. those with {a(somedate)} in their name. How do I do this, even on y local hard drive ?
I thought I would simply use "*{a*}* but it returns a list of items with or without brackets (but actually no folder).
1 Answer
To search for special characters (both on a hard drive and network drive), you can simply put the search term between ~=" and ", where ~= means contains according to an archived Windows help page.
So for you first problem the search term would be ~="*{*}*", and for your second it would be ~="*{a*}*".
