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Searching Your Files in StretchDrive

Find files and folders by name, or by the text inside text-based files, with highlighted snippets and folder or owner filters.

As your Drive grows, search becomes the fastest way to find things. StretchDrive doesn't just match file names — for text-based files it also searches the words inside them. This article shows how to get the most out of it.

Two kinds of matches

When you type in Search in Drive, StretchDrive looks for two kinds of matches:

  1. Name matches — files and folders whose name contains your term.
  2. Content matches — text-based files whose contents contain your term. For these, results include a highlighted snippet showing the text around the match, so you can confirm it's what you want before opening.

Name matches are ranked first, followed by content matches.

Which files are searched by content

Content search applies to text-based files up to about 512 KB, including plain text, Markdown, CSV/TSV, JSON, YAML, XML, and common source-code files (.js, .ts, .css, .html, .sql, .log, and more). Binary formats like images, PDFs, and video are matched by name only.

  1. Click the Search in Drive box at the top of Drive.
  2. Type your term. Results appear as you refine it.
  3. Review the results — folders and files, with snippets on content matches.
  4. Click a result to open or preview it.

Search always respects your permissions: you only ever see items you're allowed to view.

Narrowing your results

Search can be scoped so you don't wade through the whole workspace:

  • By folder — limit results to a particular folder, so you're only searching within, say, Client Delivery.
  • By owner — limit results to files created by a specific person.

Combine a term with a scope to zero in quickly — for example, search invoice within the Finance folder.

A realistic example

You remember writing a note about "renewal terms" but not where you filed it. You search renewal terms. StretchDrive returns:

  • a folder named Renewals 2026 (name match),
  • a file Acme-renewal.pdf (name match), and
  • a text file meeting-notes.txt whose contents include "...agreed the renewal terms would auto-extend for 12 months..." shown as a highlighted snippet (content match).

The snippet tells you instantly that meeting-notes.txt is the one you wanted — no need to open each candidate.

Tips

  • Search by a distinctive phrase rather than a common word to cut down noise.
  • Use content search for notes, exports, and code where the name may not hint at what's inside.
  • Scope to a folder when you know roughly where something lives.
  • Read the snippet to pick the right result before opening anything.
  • Keep a consistent naming convention so name search stays reliable for binary files that can't be searched by content.

FAQ

Why didn't search find text inside my PDF or Word file? Content search covers text-based formats only; PDFs and office documents are matched by file name.

Why didn't it search a very large text file's contents? Content search applies to text files up to about 512 KB; above that, the file is matched by name.

Will I see files other people have that I can't access? No — results are filtered to what your permissions allow.

Does search look in Trash? No, search covers your active files and folders; recover deleted items from Trash instead.

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