Help:Searching

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Commons' search engine generally works the same as the search engine on Wikipedia. For help with using the search engine, you can visit the English Wikipedia search help page (which is particularly detailed), or the same help page on other Wikipedias. For further information see mw:Help:CirrusSearch or, specifically for the default MediaSearch, mw:Help:MediaSearch.

Search options on the Commons

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intitle: and prefix: and other search options are activated on Commons search. Note especially the file properties search options. Also note that the prefixes are case sensitive; for example, a capital letter I in Incategory:"Cats" will not work.

Search using structured data

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To search using structured data statements, use the keyword haswbstatement. For example, if you wanted to find all instances of depicts (P180) a Q146, use: haswbstatement:P180=Q146. To find all instances of copyright license (P275) Creative Commons CC0 License (Q6938433), use: haswbstatement:P275=Q6938433.

MediaSearch and SpecialSearch

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There are two ways to search this site: the SpecialSearch and the MediaSearch.

It is generally recommended to use the newer MediaSearch which has a wall-of-images view and is the default since 2021 when entering a search phrase in the top right search bar.

In the MediaSearch one can use ctrl+click to open images directly in a new tab or click on an image to view a preview in the "quick view" sidepanel with the file description. However, one currently can't use the cat-a-lot tool to mass-categorize files from its result page and doesn't have the advanced search input form so the SpecialSearch still has its use. One can switch to the special search by clicking on "Switch to Special:Search" in the top right of the search page.

Search enhancements

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  • Petscan gadget – Adds a link to the PetScan tool under "More" at the top right of a category page. Allows to combine several categories and exclude results from other categories and further ways to filter and combine categories. (be aware that some categories are quite incomplete and some contain offtopic subcategories or subcategories with a large number of files)
  • Long image and file names in categories can be activated in preferences in the gadget tab
Partly dysfunctional
  • Intersections of categories can be shown by default gadget Help:FastCCI – one can use it with the button that says "Good pictures" at the top right of category pages. It can also show all highlighted media in a category and its subcategories in a wall of images and several related things (it often does not work)
  • Help:Gadget-DeepcatSearch (enable it here) adds a search link under "More" at the top right of a category page to view all files in a category and its subcategories as a wall of images via the MediaSearch (it often does not work)
Dysfunctional / absent
Proposed
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