Windows 10 text search through docs

Windows 10 has a search feature that can find files. You can search for files by name, date and type. The taskbar search works just like the File Explorer search feature.

This way you can search for files, if you know the name of the file, what date or an approximate date it was created, and what kind of file it is.

Another parameter that can be used to search for a file is its contents. If you remember some of the content in a file, you can use it as a search parameter. This only works if the file contains text.

In Windows 10, you can search for text within certain documents or file types. Supported file types are:

TXT files
DOCX files
LOG files
XLSX files

There may be other supported files, but many text files, such as a PS1 script, cannot be searched.

Let's see how you can do it:

To search for text in files using File Explorer, follow the steps you already know:

Open File Explorer and select the disk or folder where you think the file might be located.
Click the search bar next to the location bar.
Add a term that you know is unique to the file and press Enter.
File Explorer will show you the files it has found.

Search text in files with AnyTXT

As mentioned, text-to-file search is not supported for all file types, so if you want to search within an unsupported file, you need a third-party application such as AnyTXT.

Download and run the free app.
Open the discs drop-down menu and select the disc you want to search.
Open the drive drop-down menu and select the file format you want to search.
Add the term you want to search for and click search.

Supported file formats

AnyTXT does not have full and complete support for all files that can have text. However, it can search text in files in the following formats.

PDF
DOC
PPT
XLS
DOCX
Pptx
XLSX
CHM
MOBI
EPUB
FB2
TCR
TXT

AnyTXT has the option to add additional formats, but does not work as well as the file formats it already supports.