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Enterprise users can access their documentation here. Find your plan.

Enter search terms in the search box that appears on the center-left of the top bar on every page, and press Enter. On small screens, you may need to activate the search button to show the textbox first.

If you need to refine and narrow your search, here are some basic tips:

To search within specific tag(s), enter them in square brackets: [maintenance] seat searches for mentions of "seat" within the [maintenance] tag.
To find a specific phrase, enter it in quotes: "flat tire".
To limit your search to just the title of a question, use title: followed by the search term. Likewise, search the body only (exclude the title) with body:"phrase here".
To search only within code blocks: code:"new" to search code within posts for the word "new".
To search just your posts: user:me training searches all of your posts for the word "training".
To exclude results from a tag, term or phrase, prefix it with - in your query: waffles -unicorns finds posts that mention tasty batter-based breakfasts - without including mythical creatures, while [laurel] -[hardy] includes only posts pertaining to the first half of the classic comedy couple.
Use wildcard searches to broaden results; add an asterisk (*) anywhere in the word, like encour* or Ex*nge.

NOTE: The following applies to searching on Teams, and pressing Enter to see the full results, as well as when searching through our Slack or MS Teams integrations. The autocomplete search results that appear while you type in the search box are based on a lighter search that looks through titles of posts only.

Advanced search options

We offer a number of advanced search operators to help you find very specific information.

Range operators

To search for only questions that fall within a particular range for score, number of answers, or number of views, you can enter an upper or lower parameter, or a range.

SEARCH	RESULT
`score:` or `score:1..`	Return posts with a score greater than or equal to 1.
`views:500..1000`	Return posts with 500 to 1,000 views.
`answers:..3`	Return questions with 3 or fewer answers.

Dates

You can use specific dates or date ranges to narrow results down to posts created or active within a certain time period, by replacing {date-or-range} in the following operators:

SEARCH	RESULT
`created:{date-or-range}`	Specify when the post was created.
`lastactive:{date-or-range}`	Specify when the post last had activity.

Dates can be entered in the following formats:

Absolute dates and ranges:

USING YEARS ONLY	USING YEAR AND MONTH	USING FULL DATES
`2012..2013`	`2012-04..2012-05`	`2012-04-03..2012-04-04`
`2012`	`2012-04`	`2012-04-03`

For absolute dates, the beginning component of a range always uses the first day of the range, while the end component always uses the last day of the range. So specifying a year with always start at January 1 and end at December 31.

Relative dates and ranges:

1y, 1m, and 1d are shorthand for "last year", "last month", and "yesterday" respectively. For example, if today is April 15, created:1m searches posts created between March 1 and March 31. You can substitute any number for 1 to look back that many years, months, or days.

Relative dates in a range (1y..) look back to the same date in the previous period. For example, if you want to see all the posts active in the last three months, use lastactive:3m.. as your search. On April 15, that will show posts from January 15 up to the most recently active. You can close the range as well: lastactive:3m..1m.

Please note that all times are recorded in UTC; the results may not match your timezone.

User operators

You can also limit searches to a specific user's content (your own or someone else's). Replace {user-id} with the user Id of a specific user to search that user's posts.

SEARCH	RESULT
`user:{user-id}`	Returns posts created by the specified user.
`inbookmarks:{user-id}`	Returns only questions that are in the specified user's bookmarks.
`intags:mine`	Returns posts that appear in your watched tags (cannot be used with a user Id). If you do not have any watched tags, this operator will return all posts. For better results, update your preferences.

Search your own content: Any place where {user-id} appears can also be substituted with me or mine to automatically substitute with your own user Id.

Boolean operators

The following search operators can be used by replacing {boolean} with values of yes/no, true/false, or 1/0 (each pair behaves the same):

SEARCH	RESULT
`isaccepted:{boolean}`	Returns only answers that have (or have not) been marked as accepted.
`hascode:{boolean}`	Returns posts that do (or do not) contain code blocks in the body.
`hasaccepted:{boolean}`	Returns only questions that have (or do not have) accepted answers.
`isanswered:{boolean}`	Returns only questions that have (or do not have) at least one positively-scored answer.
`closed:{boolean}`	Returns only questions that are (or are not) closed, including duplicates.
`duplicate:{boolean}`	Returns only questions that are (or are not) marked as a duplicate of another question.
`obsolete:{boolean}`	Returns only posts that are (or are not) marked as obsolete.

OR operator

To combine results from multiple tags, separate the tag names (enclosed in square brackets) with the word "or": [example1] or [example2] returns questions tagged with either tag.

Miscellaneous operators

SEARCH	RESULT
`url:"example.com"`	Returns posts that have a rendered hyperlink within them containing the specified text in the URL.
`is:{question} is:{answer} is:{article}` or `is:{q} is:{a}`	Narrows results down to just questions, answers, or articles. q expands to questions and a expands to answers.
`inquestion:{question-id}` `inquestion:this`	Restricts the search to answers on the specified question. Using this will automatically substitute with the question Id of the question you are currently viewing.

Need help? Submit an issue or question through our support portal.