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Find Project Files

There are several ways to find files and folders in projects. You can:

  • Group and sort project files.

  • Search for and filter project files.

  • Search the content in project files.

Group and Sort Project Files

To change how files and folder are grouped or sorted in the Files view, select from the options in the Layout field and the Actions menu .

For example, to group files by type, in the Layout field, select List. Then, click the Actions button and select Group By > Type. To sort the grouped files by size, click the actions button and select Sort By > Size.

Search for and Filter Project Files

You can search for project files and folders in the Files view.

To search for a file or folder, in the search field at the top of the view, begin typing the file or folder name. The asterisk character (*) is a wildcard. For example, to show only file names that begin with coll and have a .m extension, type coll*.m.

To filter the files and folders in the current view, click the Filter button next to the search field. In the Filter Builder dialog box, select the names, file types, project statuses, and labels to filter by.

The Filter Builder displays the resulting filter. For example:

Filter = type=='MATLAB Code files (*.m, *.mlx)' AND project status=='In project' 
AND label=='Classification:Test'
Click Apply to filter the files and folders in the current view. The search field displays the applied filter.

To clear a search or filter, click the Clear button to the right of the search field.

Search the Content in Project Files

You can search for text inside MathWorks product files (such as MATLAB® files, Simulink® model files, and data dictionaries) and some other kinds of project files (such as PDF and Microsoft® Word files). MATLAB only searches in files in the project. To search the content of files in a referenced project, open the referenced project.

To search the content of project files:

  1. On the Project tab, click the down arrow to expand the Tools gallery. Under Project Files, click Search. The Search Inside Project Files dialog box opens.

  2. Enter the text to search. MATLAB searches the project files for the exact text in the search field and displays the results.

    Avoid using quotes around phrases.

  3. Expand a result in the result list to view the match and surrounding context inside the search window.

  4. Double-click the search result to open the file and locate the match.

  5. Click Filters at the bottom left of the results to refine the results by file type, status, or label.

Find Project Files in MATLAB Online

In MATLAB Online™, to find files and folders in projects, click the Find Files icon in the sidebar. If the Find Files icon is not in the left or right sidebar, go to the Home tab, and in the File section, click Find Files.

Find Files tool with a Search box and options to match the case of the search text, match the whole word, and filter results. The MATLAB Online desktop left sidebar shows the Find Files icon.

To change how the Find Files tool searches for text, select a search option:

  • Match case – Search only for text with the precise case of the search text.

  • Match whole word – Search only for exact full-word matches.

To only search for files within the project, click the Filters button and set the Look in option to Current project. If a project is open when you open the Find Files tool, this option is set to Current project by default. You also can use the Filters button to specify whether to search for file names or file content, and what file types to include in the results.

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