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Manage the search schema in SharePoint Server

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The search schema in SharePoint Server determines how content is collected in and retrieved from the search index in SharePoint Server.

Crawled properties are metadata that is extracted from content during crawls. Metadata can be structured content (such as the title or the author from a Word document), or unstructured content (such as a detected language or extracted keywords).

You decide which crawled metadata to index by mapping the crawled property to a managed property. Users can only search on managed properties. You can map multiple crawled properties to a single managed property or map a single crawled property to multiple managed properties.

Note

The search schema applies to both the classic and the modern search experiences, except for the following settings which don't apply to modern search:

  • Refinable. Modern search has built-in refiners.
  • Sortable. Not supported in modern search.
  • Custom entity extraction. Modern search has built-in refiners.
  • Company name extraction. Not supported in modern search.

Before you begin

Before you begin this operation, review the following information about prerequisites:

  • Create a Search service application.

  • Add one or more content sources and run a full crawl.

To view crawled properties and managed properties

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

  2. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. Click the Search service application.

  4. On the Search Administration page, in the Quick Launch, under Queries and Results, click Search Schema.

  5. On the Managed Properties page, you see an overview of all the managed properties, the settings on the managed properties and the crawled properties they are mapped to. To view crawled properties, click Crawled Properties. To view crawled property categories, click Categories.

To add a managed property

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

  2. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. Click the Search service application.

  4. On the Search Administration page, in the Quick Launch, under Queries and Results, click Search Schema.

  5. On the Managed Properties page, click New Managed Property.

  6. On the New Managed Property page, in the Property name box in the Name and description section, enter the name of the new managed property. You can also enter a description.

  7. In the Type section, select one of the following options for the property:

  • Text

  • Integer

  • Decimal

  • Date and Time

  • Yes/No

  • Double precision float

  • Binary

  1. In the Main characteristics section, select one or several of the following:

  • Searchable

  • Advanced searchable settings (optional, if Searchable is selected)

  • Queryable

  • Retrievable

  • Allow multiple values

  • Refinable

  • Sortable

  • Alias

  • Token normalization

  • Complete matching

  • Language neutral tokenization

  • Finer query tokenization

Important

If you want to be able to use this managed property as a refiner, you must select both Refinable and Queryable.

  1. In the Mappings to crawled properties section, click Add a mapping.

  2. On the Crawled property selection page, select a crawled property to map to the managed property and then click OK. Repeat this step to map more crawled properties.

  3. On the New Managed Property page, in the Mappings to crawled properties section, specify if you want to include:

  • All content from all crawled properties mapped to this managed property

  • Content from the first crawled property that contains a value and, optionally, in which order.

  1. In the Company name extraction section, you can optionally select the check box to enable company name extraction.

  2. In the Custom entity extraction section, you can optionally select the check box to enable custom entity extraction. See Create and deploy custom entity extractors in SharePoint Server for the procedures.

  3. Click OK.

You have to perform a full crawl of the content source or sources that contain this new managed property to include it in the search index. If the new managed property is in a SharePoint Server library or list, you have to reindex that library or list.For more information see, Overview of the search schema in SharePoint Server.

To edit a managed property

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

  2. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. Click the Search service application.

  4. On the Search Administration page, in the Quick Launch, under Queries and Results, click Search Schema.

  5. On the Managed Properties page, find the managed property that you want to edit, or enter its name in the Filter box.

  6. Point to the managed property that you want to edit, click the arrow, and then click Edit/Map property.

  7. On the Edit Managed Property page, edit the settings and then click OK.

Some changes on managed property settings require a full crawl to take effect. See the table Search schema changes that require content to be reindexed for an overview of which changes require you to reindex the content.

To delete a managed property

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

  2. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. Click the Search service application.

  4. On the Search Administration page, in the Quick Launch, under Queries and Results, click Search Schema.

  5. On the Managed Properties page, find the managed property that you want to delete, or enter its name in the Filter box.

  6. Point to the managed property that you want to delete, click the arrow, and then click Delete.

  7. Click OK.

If you delete a managed property:Users can no longer run queries using this property.A query rule that uses this property no longer works.A custom search application or web part that uses this property no longer works.To delete this property from the search index, you'll have to perform a full crawl. If the deleted property was in a SharePoint Server library or list, you'll have to reindex that library or list.

To map a crawled property to a managed property

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

  2. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. Click the Search service application.

  4. On the Search Administration page, in the Quick Launch, under Queries and Results, click Search Schema.

  5. On the Crawled Properties page, find the crawled property that you want to map to a managed property, or enter its name in the Filters box.

  6. Point to the crawled property that you want to map, click the arrow, and then click Edit/Map property.

  7. On the Edit Crawled Property page, in the Mappings to managed properties section, click Add a Mapping.

  8. On the Managed property selection page, select one managed property to map to the crawled property and then click OK. Repeat this step to map more managed properties to this crawled property.

  9. In the Include in full-text index section, check the box if you want to include the content of this crawled property in the full-text index.

  10. On the Edit Crawled Property page, click OK.

You have to perform a full crawl of the content source that includes the crawled property that you've mapped to a managed property for the new mapping to take effect. If the new mapping is for a SharePoint Server library or list, you have to reindex that library or list.

To view or edit crawled property categories

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application.

  2. In Central Administration, in Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. Click the Search service application.

  4. On the Search Administration page, in the Quick Launch, under Queries and Results, click Search Schema.

  5. On the Categories page, find the crawled property category that you want to view or edit.

  • To view which crawled properties belong to a category, and which managed properties they are mapped to, click the crawled property category in the Categories page.

  • To edit a category, point to the crawled property category that you want to edit, click the arrow, and then click Edit category.

Caution

If you edit a crawled property category, your changes apply to all of the crawled properties within the category. Changing a crawled property category can influence performance and how items are saved in the search index. You also have to reindex the content.

Add a managed property using tenant administration or site collection administration

Tenant administrators and site collection administrators can create a search schema that is specific for their tenant or site collection. For more information how to manage the search schema for tenants and site collections, see Manage the search schema in SharePoint.

You can create new managed properties for a tenant or a site collection and map crawled properties to them. Alternatively, you can reuse existing, unused managed properties that do not have crawled properties mapped to them, and rename them using an Alias. Then, you must map crawled properties to the renamed managed property with the defined alias.

When you create a new managed property in the tenant or site collection administration, there are some limitations. For example, the property can only be of type Text or Yes/No, and it can't be refinable or sortable. If you need a property of a different type, or one that has different characteristics than what is available, follow the steps under To create a managed property by renaming an existing one.

When you have added a new property to a list or to a library on a SharePoint Server site, or when you have changed properties that are used in a list or library, the content must be re-crawled before your changes will be reflected in the search index. Because your changes are made in the search schema, and not to the actual site, the crawler will not automatically reindex the list or the library. To make sure that your changes are crawled and reindexed, you can specifically request a reindexing of the list or library. When you do this, the list or library content will be recrawled and reindexed so that you can start using your new managed properties in queries, query rules and display templates.

See the table Search schema changes that require content to be reindexed for an overview of which managed property setting changes require you to reindex the content.

To create a managed property for a tenant or a site collection

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the tenant or for the site collection.

  2. Go to the Search Schema page for the tenant or for a site collection.

  • For the tenant, go to More features in the SharePoint admin center, and sign in with an account that has admin permissions in Microsoft 365. Under Search, select Open, and then select Manage Search Schema.
  • For the site collection, on your site, go to Settings, click Site settings and then under Site Collection Administration, click Search Schema.

  1. On the Managed Properties page, click New Managed Property.

  2. On the New Managed Property page, in the Property name box in the Name and description section, enter the name of the new managed property. You can also enter a description.

  3. In the Type section, select one of the following options for the property:

  • Text

  • Yes/No

  1. In the Main characteristics section, select one or several of the available options.

  2. In the Mappings to crawled properties section, click Add a mapping.

  3. On the Crawled property selection page, select a crawled property to map to the managed property and then click OK. Repeat this step to map more crawled properties.

  4. On the New Managed Property page, in the Mappings to crawled properties section, specify if you want to include:

  • All content from all crawled properties mapped to this managed property

  • Content from the first crawled property that contains a value and, optionally, in which order.

  1. Click OK.

To create a managed property by renaming an existing one

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the tenant or for the site collection.

  2. Go to the Search Schema page for the tenant or for a site collection.

  • For the tenant, go to More features in the SharePoint admin center, and sign in with an account that has admin permissions in Microsoft 365. Under Search, select Open, and then select Manage Search Schema.
  • For the site collection, on your site, go to Settings, click Site settings and then under Site Collection Administration, click Search Schema.

  1. On the Managed Properties page, find an unused managed property. By unused, we mean that the property is not mapped to a crawled property: the Mapped Crawled Properties column is empty. See the Default unused managed properties table for more details. Point to the managed property, click the arrow, and then click Edit/Map property.

  2. On the Edit Managed Property page, in the Main characteristics section, under Alias, enter a name in the field.

  3. In the Mappings to crawled properties section, click Add a mapping.

  4. On the Crawled property selection page, select a crawled property to map to the managed property and then click OK. Repeat this step to map more crawled properties to this managed property.

  5. Click OK.

To reindex a list or library

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the tenant or for the site collection.

  2. Browse to the list or library that you want to recrawl, and then do one of the following:

  • If you want to perform a full crawl of a library, click the LIBRARY tab, and then, on the ribbon, in the Settings group, click Library Settings.

  • If you want to perform a full crawl of a list, click the LIST tab, and then, on the ribbon, in the Settings group, click List Settings.

  1. On the Settings page, in the General Settings section, click Advanced settings.

  2. On the Advanced Settings page:

  • If you want to reindex a library: in the Reindex Library section, click Reindex Document Library.

  • If you want to reindex a list: in the Reindex List section, click Reindex List.

  1. Click OK.

The full reindex of the list or library will be performed during the next scheduled crawl.

Default unused managed properties

The following table provides an overview of the default unused managed properties that you can reuse and rename using an Alias.

Managed property type Count Managed property characteristics Managed property name range
Date 10 Queryable Date00 to Date09
Date 20 Multivalued, Queryable, Refinable, Sortable, Retrievable RefinableDate00 to RefinableDate19
Date (SharePoint Server 2019) 2 Queryable, Refinable, Sortable, Retrievable RefinableDateInvariant00 to RefinableDateInvariant01
Date (SharePoint Server 2019) 5 Queryable, Refinable, Sortable, Retrievable RefinableDateSingle00 to RefinableDateSingle04
Decimal 10 Queryable Decimal00 to Decimal09
Decimal 10 Multivalued, Queryable, Refinable, Sortable, Retrievable RefinableDecimal00 to RefinableDecimal09
Double 10 Queryable Double00 to Double09
Double 10 Multivalued, Queryable, Refinable, Sortable, Retrievable RefinableDouble00 to RefinableDouble09
Integer 50 Queryable Int00 to Int49
Integer 50 Multivalued, Queryable, Refinable, Sortable, Retrievable RefinableInt00 to RefinableInt49
String (SharePoint Server 2013) 100 Multivalued, Queryable, Refinable, Sortable, Retrievable RefinableString00 to RefinableString99
String (SharePoint Server 2019) 200 Multivalued, Queryable, Refinable, Sortable, Retrievable RefinableString00 to RefinableString199

How to use an Alias: an example

Say that you want to create a managed property that contains employee numbers, and you want users to be able to search for these by typing "EmployeeID:12345", where "12345" is an example employee number. As this managed property is not of the type Text or Yes/No, you'll follow the steps in To create a managed property by renaming an existing one with this input:

  • Choose an unused managed property of the type integer, see the table Default unused managed properties. Use any unused property from Int00 to Int49 if you only want users to be able to query on the employee number, or from RefinableInt00 to RefinableInt49 if you want users to be able to query, refine, sort etc. on employee number.

  • Give the property an Alias, in this example EmployeeID.

  • Map the EmployeeID property to the crawled property that contains the employee numbers.

Search schema changes that require content to be reindexed

Managed property setting Action Requires a full crawl to reindex
Mapping a crawled to a managed property Add/Delete mapping Yes
Token normalization Enable/Disable Yes
Complete matching Enable/Disable Yes
Lanugage neutral tokenization Enable/Disable Yes
Company name extraction Enable/Disable Yes
Custom entity extraction Enable/Disable Yes
Searchable Enable/Disable Yes
Queryable Enable Yes
Queryable Disable No
Retrievable Enable Yes
Retrievable Disable No
Refinable Enable (if not already Sortable) Yes
Refinable Disable No
Sortable Enable (if not already Refinable) Yes
Sortable Disable No
Alias Add/Delete No