Meta application icon Searching For Partial Matches

When running a search in Meta, you can specify whether an item's metadata value must be exactly the same as the value you've given, or if it can be partially the same. This is the difference between an exact match and a complete match. This feature allows you to run searches with a lot of flexibility with regard to the values Meta will accept when it's deciding which items to show you in the Search Results pane of the Meta Search Window.

For example, say you are trying to find a specific financial report spreadsheet. If you know the exact name of the document, it'll be easy. Just search on the name of the document, like this:

name:FinancialReport.xls

That search will show you all the documents on your computer that have the exact name "FinancialReport.xls".

But what if you can't really remember the name of the document, but you remember that it was named something like "Financial-something-or-other"? That's where partial matching can be invaluable. Using partial matching, you can find all of your documents that begin with the word "Financial". To use partial matching, add an asterisk, '*', to your search to represent the par tyou're not sure of, like this:

name:Financial*

This search will show you all the documents on your computer that begin with the word "Financial", so any document whose file name begins with "Financial" will show up. So not only would this search find your "FinancialReport.xls" document, it might also find a bunch of other documents with names like:

Partial matching isn't limited to the end of a word, though; you can look for partial matches anywhere in the word. That includes the beginning of the word, and even the middle. You can also use multiple asterisks to indicate places in the word where you don't know the exact value, like this:

name:Financial*Song*

That search would show you all the documents on your computer that begin with "Financial", followed by anything, followed by "Song", and ending with anything. So it would not only find your "Financial Love Song.mp3" digital music file, but it would also find any other files matching that pattern, like "FinancialSong", or "Financial Songs Don't Make Sense.doc".