Enhancing the Nautilus search option

Sounds like a job for gnome-search-tool.

It can perform partial matches on the file name and search on more options:

• File content
• Modification date
• Size
• File emptiness
• Owner/Group
• Name pattern exclusion
• Name regular expression match
• Hidden and backup files

It can also:

• Follow symbolic links
• Exclude other filesystems

You can define a a location to search. In my example I have two .gpl files in that directory but only one containing the word Server.

How to you use wildcards, especially the * (star) in Linux Ubuntu Nautilus GUI File Search?

I also was just struggling with this issue, but I think I found an answer.

Here are the equivalent Windows and Nautilus search patterns:

Windows: diagram*.ppt

Nautilus: diagram ppt

Basically, try using a spacebar character in Nautilus where you would use a * character normally. I think I FINALLY figured this out, after years of trying... sigh.

When you're performing a normal search with Nautilus, it will search within the current folder and all subfolder for files with the search pattern in their names. You can limit the type of files you want by clicking on the '+' button once the search is started and adding a rule on the file type.

That's pretty much all you can do, I think. For advanced search, advanced users use the command line program find and other users don't have any solutions.