change default search for partial strings

Question

Hello,

I have a Office 365 instance in modern design.

I have a question, if it is possible to change the default search in sharepoint for partial search.

Example:

I have a file with the name "carlists.pdf" in sharepointlibary.

When I'm searching for "carlists", there is a result
When I'm searching for "carlist", there is no result
When I'm searching for "carlist*", there is result

For our customer it was better, if the default search could include partial strings. I know, there where more results, but I'll try it out.

Answer 1

No, it's impossible to change the default search in sharepoint for partial search. This is by design.

SharePoint search supports Keyword Query Language (KQL) syntax for building search queries. keyword-query-language-kql-syntax-reference

When you use words in a free-text KQL query, Search in SharePoint returns results based on exact matches of your words with the terms stored in the full-text index. You can use just a part of a word, from the beginning of the word, by using the wildcard operator (*) to enable prefix matching. In prefix matching, Search in SharePoint matches results with terms that contain the word followed by zero or more characters.

For example, the following KQL queries return content items that contain the terms "federated" and "search":

federated search

federat* search

search fed*

KQL queries don't support suffix matching.

So if you want to use partial strings for search , you have to use the wildcard operator (*) to enable prefix matching.