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Find in Files

Find in Files allows you to search a specified set of files. Visual Studio lists the matching results in the Find Results window in the IDE. How the results appear depends on the options you choose on the Find in Files tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.

How to display Find in Files

Use the following steps to open the Find and Replace dialog box, or press Ctrl+Shift+F.

  1. On the menu bar, select Edit > Find and Replace.

  2. Choose Find in Files from the fly-out menu.

To cancel a Find operation, press Ctrl+Break.

Note

The Find and Replace tool doesn't search directories with the Hidden or System attribute.

Keep results

You can keep the results from one search while you're performing other searches. This makes it easy to compare results and see them side-by-side.

To keep several search results, select the Keep Results button after each search. Then, when you search for something else, the results are shown in a new tab. You can keep the results of up to five searches. If you've already got five search results showing, the next search will reuse the oldest search result tab.