DiskBoss provides powerful and flexible file search capabilities allowing one to search files using multiple search criteria including the file name, file extension, file type, file size, last access, modification and creation times, text or binary patterns, JPEG EXIF tags, etc. The user is provided with the ability to define composite search queries using multiple search rules and apply the AND/OR logical operators.

One of the most powerful capabilities of the DiskBoss file and disk management toolkit is the integration of the rule-based search features in almost all types of analysis and file management operations. For example, disk space analysis, duplicate files detection, file classification, file copy and file delete operations may be performed on files matching one or more user-specified rules and policies.

Users are provided with the ability to display search results, save HTML, XML, text and Excel CSV reports and perform file management operations on search results. In addition, DiskBoss allows one to send e-mail notifications and/or execute custom actions when a search operation reaches a user-specified number of search results. Finally, corporations and enterprises are provided with advanced database integration capabilities allowing one to submit search reports into a centralized SQL database.

DiskBoss is capable of automatically recognizing more that 2,500 file types and categories organized into a logical hierarchy of file classes and class groups, making it very easy to search for broad categories of files such as documents, music files, videos, images, etc. In order to search for files by the file type select the 'Search Files Categorized As' file matching rule and press the 'Select' button to select a file category.

File categories and file classes are organized into a logical hierarchy representing specific file types grouped into a number of broad file categories. DiskBoss includes a number of file classification plugins, which provide different types of file categories allowing one to categorize files by the file type, size, creation, last access and modification dates, etc. In order to select a different file classification plugin, use the plugin combo box located on the top side of the file categories dialog.

In order to open a file category, just click on the category item in the list. Select the required file category or file class and press the 'Select' button to select the file category for the file matching rule. During runtime, DiskBoss will match files related to any file class in the selected file category or the exact file class if the file matching rule was set to match an individual file type.

In order to search files by the file name, open the search operation dialog, press the 'Add' button, select the 'Search Files with the File Name' rule, select an appropriate file name comparison operator and enter a file name pattern string to compare file names with. The file name comparison operator allows one to find files matching, beginning with, ending with or containing the specified string pattern. In addition, negative comparison operators are provided as well. File name searches are case insensitive and the entered file name pattern string will match both low case and upper case letters.

In order to search files by the file extension, open the search operation dialog, press the 'Add' button, select the 'Search Files with the File Extension' rule, select an appropriate file extension comparison operator and enter a file extension pattern string to compare file extensions with. The file extension comparison operator allows one to find files matching, beginning with, ending with or containing the specified string pattern. In addition, negative comparison operators are provided as well. File extension searches are case insensitive and the entered file extension pattern string will match both low case and upper case letters.

In order to search files by the directory name, open the search operation dialog, press the 'Add' button, select the 'Search Files with the Directory Name' rule, select an appropriate directory name comparison operator and enter a directory name pattern string to compare directories with. The directory name comparison operator allows one to find directories matching, beginning with, ending with or containing the specified string pattern. In addition, negative comparison operators are provided as well. Directory name searches are case insensitive and the entered directory name pattern string will match both low case and upper case letters.

DiskBoss provides two sets of file matching rules allowing one to search files by the creation, last modification and last access dates. The first set of rules matches files using absolute dates and the second set of file matching rules matches files using relative time periods. Absolute dates are preferable when the user needs to find all files that were created or modified during a specific calendar month or year, while relative time periods are more useful when someone needs to find files that were created or modified during the last X days or Y months always giving correct results as the time goes on.

Searching files by relative access, modification or creation times may be very useful when the user does not know the exact period of time he or she is looking for. Another advantage using relative time periods is the constant validity of search queries, which are keeping up to date while the time is going on. For example, a search query configured to find all files that were modified during the last month is always valid independent of the current month.

In order to search files by a text string inside of files, open the search operation dialog, press the 'Add' button, select the 'Search Files Containing Text' rule, select an appropriate text comparison operator and enter a text pattern string to search inside of files. The text pattern comparison operator allows one to find files containing or not containing the specified text pattern. Text searches are case insensitive and the entered text pattern string will match both low case and upper case letters.

DiskBoss is capable of searching files by binary patterns located or not located at specific positions inside of files. In order to add a binary pattern search rule, press the 'Add' button, select the 'Search Files Containing HEX Pattern' rule, select an appropriate comparison operator, enter the HEX pattern to search for and specify an absolute position inside of files the pattern should be located on. The HEX pattern should be specified as a string of upper case HEX numbers delimited by the space character with each number representing a single byte of the pattern. Users needed to match multiple binary patterns located at different places in each file may use multiple binary file matching rules with each one configured to match a single pattern. Moreover, multiple hierarchical binary file matching rules may be combined with logical operators allowing one to compose sophisticated, multi-level file search queries capable of finding the exact files the user is looking for.

Regular expressions provide a flexible and powerful way to match text patterns in file names and directories. DiskBoss provides RegEx pattern matching operators for the file name search rule and the file path search rule. In order to search files using a regular expression, select the 'File Name' file matching rule, select the 'RegEx' pattern matching operator and enter a regular expression that should be matched. For example, the '\.(JPG|BMP|PNG)$' regular expression will match all JPG, BMP and PNG image files.

Regular expressions may be combined with other types of file matching rules allowing one to match a very specific set of files. In addition to the ability to match files using regular expressions, DiskBoss allows one to exclude files using regular expressions. For example, in order to search all programs and executable files while excluding files located in the Windows directory, use the regular expression '^(?!C:\\WINDOWS)' applied to the 'Full Path' file matching rule.

DiskBoss provides the ability to search files by the file size. In order to add a file search rule capable of matching files by the file size, press the 'Add' button, select the 'Search Files with File Size' rule, select an appropriate size comparison operator and enter the file size value.

Sometimes, it may be required to find files by file attributes such as read-only, hidden, system, etc. In order to add a file search rule capable of matching files by file attributes, press the 'Add' button, select the 'Search Files with File Attributes' rule, select an appropriate comparison operator and press the 'Select' button to select the file attributes to look for.

On the select dialog, check the required file attributes and press the 'Ok' button. When the rule is set to find files having the selected attributes, DiskBoss will match files having any of the selected file attributes. Otherwise, when the rule is set to find files hot having the selected attributes, DiskBoss will match files having none of the selected attributes.

DiskBoss is capable of searching files by the user name. In order to add the user name file matching rule, press the 'Add' button, select the 'Search Files with the User Name' rule, select an appropriate user name comparison operator and enter the user name pattern string. The user name comparison operator allows one to find user names matching, beginning with, ending with or containing the specified string pattern. In addition, negative comparison operators are provided as well. User name searches are case insensitive and the entered user name pattern string will match both low case and upper case letters.

DiskBoss provides a JPEG EXIF tags file matching rule allowing one to search JPEG images by standard and/or custom JPEG EXIF tags. In order to add a JPEG EXIF tags matching rule, press the 'Add' button, select the 'Search JPEG Images with EXIF Tag' rule, select the JPEG EXIF tag to match, select an appropriate comparison operator and enter the string value to search for. In addition to the ability to search for standard EXIF tags, users can customize the list of supported EXIF tags adding user-specific custom tags to the product configuration. In order to customize supported EXIF tags, select a JPEG image in the DiskBoss' file navigator, press the right mouse button and select the 'EXIF Viewer' menu item. On the EXIF viewer dialog, press the 'Customize' button and use the 'Add', 'Edit', 'Delete' buttons to customize the supported JPEG EXIF tags.

Nested, hierarchical file matching rules may be very useful when the user needs to find files related to multiple file categories and one or more additional criteria such as a specific file size or modification date. In order to create a nested rule list, select the 'Nested Rules' file search rule type.

On the nested rules dialog, add all the required file matching rules, select an appropriate logical operator and press the 'Ok' button. There are no limits on the number of nested levels and the user can create as many nested levels as required.

DiskBoss allows one to execute user-defined commands, custom programs, batch files and/or shell scripts or send e-mail notifications when a user-specified number of files found in a file search operation. In order to enable file search actions, open the search operation, select the 'Actions' tab, enable actions and specify the number of search results that should trigger the selected actions. In order to specify a user-defined file management command to be executed, check the 'Execute User-Defined Command' check box and select the required user-defined file management command.

In addition, the user is provided with the ability to execute a custom command, batch file or shell script when the file search operation founds a user-specified number of files. Finally, DiskBoss allows one to send E-Mail notifications with a list of files that were found by the file search operation. Before enabling E-Mail notifications, the user needs to open the options dialog, enable E-Mail notifications and specify an SMTP server name, user name and password to send E-Mail notifications through.

One of the most powerful and flexible capabilities of DiskBoss is the ability to pre-configure custom file search operations as user-defined commands and execute such commands in a single mouse click using the DiskBoss GUI application or direct desktop shortcuts. User-defined commands may be managed and executed through the commands dialog or the commands tool pane. In order to add a new command through the commands pane, press the right mouse button over the pane and select the 'Add New - File Search Command' menu item. In order to execute a previously saved command, just click on the command item in the commands tool pane or create a direct desktop shortcut on the Windows desktop.