How to use Windows Explorer to “filter” what you see

Here’s a tip for most of you who may not be power users (or who are, but haven’t figured this out yet):

When you are viewing files and folders in Windows Explorer, you can filter out all the files you don’t want to see - so, for example, if you are searching for a Microsoft Office Excel Spreadsheet, you can hide everything else so that you only see all your spreadsheet files.

What’s nice about this, is that Microsoft actually made this easy to do.

Here’s how: Open Windows Explorer to any folder you desire, any view - it doesn’t matter. A quick way to do this is with the Windows keyboard shortcut - Press and hold the Windows Key, and then press the “E” key and then release both. Windows explorer will open up in the default view that shows you all your drives.

Now navigate to any folder you want, such as your “Documents” folder.

Once you are there, you should see some column titles at the top of pane where you see all your sub-folders and/or files - such as: “Name”, “Date Modified”, “Type”, and so on.

As an example: You have a spreadsheet that you use to track your stock portfolio. It’s been a few months since you last used it, and your not sure what you named it. Since you are looking for an Excel file, just hover over the “Type” column, and a small down arrow will appear (see the screenshot) to the right of “Type” (You can also do this with any other colum and filter by name, date modified, and so on).

Once you see the arrow, just click it and a drop down list of every file “type” will show up. Next to each file type, you will see a check box. So, if you use Microsoft Office 2007, but your not sure if you saved your excel file in the older “.xls” or the newer “.xlsx” formats, you can check multiple check boxes. Now you can quickly see just the files you are interested in.

If you find this tip useful of if there is a way I can improve it, let me know!

Blackwolf