Windows File Explorer Search with Wildcards

Using File Explorer to search for folders and files. Use of wildcards. Hard to locate documentation.

HINTS

Microsoft Documentation

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/71593/windows-file-explorer-does-the-search-function-sup (http://learn.microsoft.com)

The “Accepted answer” links to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/lwef/-search-2x-wds-aqsreference

Search Results Examples

Search Tools / Search Tab

Use double quotes around what you're searching for. For example, searching for "file1.txt" will only show file1.txt. You can also use wildcards in this, "*1.txt" will give you all files that end with 1.txt and start with whatever. – https://superuser.com/questions/1519302/is-it-possible-to-find-files-by-wildcard-and-not-substring-in-windows-explorer

If you need a wildcard for just one character, using ? will work. searching for "file?1.txt" will return file01.txt and file21.txt but not file1231.txt, whereas the * will.

my advice is TURN INDEXING OFF!  Searches might be slower, but they're at least accurate.  Windows 10 search indexing (or default out-of-the-box file searching) simply doesn't seem to be working as advertised. – https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-file-explorer-search-wildcard/feeef179-a29c-4197-a8f8-65b6d8a78442