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Windows Search: Search for ONLY hidden files

Anonymous
2019-09-09T08:14:41+00:00

I have a lot of files in a folder, some of them hidden. I want to search for only the hidden files, like the guy in this post. The answer was not for ONLY hidden files. Of course I know I must enable "Show hidden files".

Windows Search is quite powerful, so it can search by dates, and some other file properties (isattachment:true, kind:folders...) but I cannot guess a search expression for hidden files.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Cortana and search

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  1. DaveM121 868.4K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2019-09-09T08:45:55+00:00

    Hi Tomás

    In Windows Files Explorer, in the search Box, paste this to find all hidden files/folders:

    attributes:Hidden

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-09-09T08:28:52+00:00

    After some trial and error I get searching only for hidden files with the expression:

    is:hidden

    Now I am thinking about searching for only hidden system files (super hidden files)

    20+ people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2019-09-09T08:50:50+00:00

    Hi Dave, thanks for your answer.

    Finally I found this great post

    What I trying now is give SYSTEM attribute to all this hidden files, to make them even more hidden. But I've realized that when I select some files and right-click them -> Properties I have no checkbox for "system", only hidden or read-only attributes. I think I should do it by command line or PowerShell

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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