Searching for Media Files
Once your music and video libraries reach a certain size, it may become difficult to browse to individual media files from within WMP. An easier way to find a specific song or video is to search for it, using WMP's Instant Search feature.
Instant Search is accessed from the search box at the top of the library window. Just enter a few keywords (from the song title, movie name, artist, or whatever) into the search box. You don't even have to press the Enter key; the results of your search appear in the Library tab as you type, and are updated as you enter each new letter of your search query.
For example, enter the letters ste and you might get 3 results for artists, 24 for albums, and 279 for songs; enter a fourth letter (stew) and your results might be fine-tuned to just 1 artist, 12 albums, and 131 songs. Keep entering your query to further fine-tune your results.
You can also fine-tune your media search, using a variety of search criteria. Here are some tips for smarter searching:
- To find an item with a specific title or artist, enclose the exact phrase in quotation marks. For example, to search for the group Black Eyed Peas, search for the entire phrase like this: "black eyed peas".
- To search for a specific album by a given artist, use the AND operator. For example, to search for the Beatles' White Album (and nothing else), search for beatles AND "white album".
- If you only want to see certain albums by an artist, you can exclude albums from an artist search by using the NOT operator. For example, to search for all albums by the Beatles except Abbey Road, search for beatles NOT "abbey road".
- To search for multiple songs or artists, use the OR operator. For example, to search for tracks from either Paul McCartney or John Lennon, enter mccartney OR lennon.
You can also restrict your search to specific fields within a music file's metadata. For example, you search only within the album title field, or within the composer field, or within the genre field. Just enter the appropriate search operator, followed by a colon, followed by the appropriate keywords. Table below lists all the search modifiers available when searching your music library.
WMP Search Modifiers
| Modifier | Search For | Example |
| Album: | Album Name | album:"abbey road" |
| Artist: | Either the primary or contributing artist | Artist:"elton john" |
| Composer: | Music composer | Composer:"jimmy webb" |
| Conductor: | Orchestra conductor | Conductor:"georg solti" |
| ContentProvider: | Content provider | ContentProvider:urge |
| ContributingArtist | Contributing artist (artist on a single track) | ContributingArtist:"bonnie raitt" |
| DateReleased | Album release date | DateReleased:2006 |
| Genre: | Genre | Genre:rock |
| Length: | Length of track (in seconds) | Length:200 |
| Protected: | Digital rights management (DRM) protection (yes/no) | Protected:yes |
| Rating: | 1-5 star rating | Rating:5 |
| Title: | Song title | Title:"born to run" |
In this tutorial:
- Managing Media Storage and Playback
- Working with Media Libraries and Folders
- Adding More Folders to a Library
- Managing the Pictures Library
- Understanding Other Picture Options
- Organizing and Editing Your Pictures
- Managing the Videos Library
- Managing the Music Library
- Managing Music Properties
- Choosing Music File Formats
- Lossy Compressed Formats
- Lossless Compressed Formats
- Non-Compressed Formats
- Choosing the Right Bit Rate
- Which File Format Should You Use?
- Dealing with DRM
- Customizing Windows Media Player
- Changing Skins
- Searching for Media Files
- Adding or Changing Album Art
- Change the Location for Ripped Files
- Enhancing Audio and Video Playback
- Switching to Another Media Player Program
