Docs Help

There are a few ways to find a specific document, spreadsheet, or presentation.

• To search for a document using a term contained in the title or body, simply enter this term in the search box (at the top of the Docs list page), then click Search Docs.

  

  A list of documents, spreadsheets and presentations containing that term appears in your Docs list. If you search for "meeting," you'll get results for the terms "mettings," "meeting's," etc. across all your docs.

  You can also use our search operators to find what you're looking for quickly:

  • Quotes for exact phase matching. Example: [ "match this phrase exactly" ]
  • OR to allow either one of several words. Example: [ "tacos" OR "nachos" ]
  • Negation. Example: [ salsa -dancing ]. This will include items with salsa recipes, but not items about dancing.
  • "from:" or "to:" to find a doc someone shared with you or a doc you shared with someone: [ from:bob@gmail.com ] or [ to:bob@gmail.com ]
  • Star or Hidden docs: [ is:starred ] or [ is:hidden ]

• If you or one of your collaborators edited the document in the last 48 hours, it will be listed either in the Today or Yesterday section of the Docs list. Or, you can click Owned by me or Opened by me, or open a folder to view all of its documents.

  

• To find a document, spreadsheet or presentation that you shared with a specific collaborator, click the Show search options link to the right of the search box in your Docs list. Then, enter the email address of the person in the 'Shared with' field, and click Search Docs. You can also click the More searches drop-down menu in the left pane of the Docs list to do a search using the advanced search options.

  

  Make sure you save the search, so next time you're looking for the same docs, you can quickly get to them from your Docs list.

• If a document has been deleted and the Trash hasn't been emptied, click the Trash icon under the All items section in the left pane of the Docs list.
• If you've assigned a document to a specific folder, open this folder from the My folders section in the left pane. All of the documents, spreadsheets and presentations in the folder will appear in your Docs list.
• Click the star icon next to docs that you use regularly. To retrieve these docs quickly, just click Starred in the Docs list sidebar.

Sorting search results

When you type a search term in the Docs list search box and click the Search Docs button, by default you'll get results sorted by relevance. You can reorder search results by clicking Relevance next to the More actions menu, and selecting Starred or Last modified from the drop-down menu.