Confluence gives you a few ways to find what you're looking for. Here's an overview of Confluence search, and a few tips to help you find things more easily.
Quick search
To perform a quick search in Confluence, choose the search field at the top-right of every page or type / on your keyboard to place your cursor in the search field. Type the name of a page, blog post, person, file/attachment, or space and choose from the list of options displayed.
If you don't immediately see what you need in the quick search, hit Enter or choose the Search for option at the bottom of the search results to do a full search.
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| You can also search for administrative options in the quick search. For example, type 'general' into the search field to go to the General Configuration screen. |
More information about quick navigation:
- Matching items are grouped by type so that you can quickly find the type you want. Confluence shows a maximum of 3 administrative items, 6 pages and/or blog posts, 2 attachments, 3 people and 2 spaces
- Items are ordered with the most recently updated first
- Permissions determine the admin options that appear in the search results. You'll only see the options you have permission to perform.
Full search
The full search allows you to search all content in all spaces (site and personal), mail, personal profiles, attachments and space descriptions, or filter the results to show only what you're after.
The search will also look at the content of the following types of attachments:
- Word
- Text
- PowerPoint
- Excel
- HTML
To use the full search:
- Type your query into the search field at the top-right corner of every screen (or at the top of the Search screen)
- Hit the Enter key
Screenshot: Search results page
- Search filters: narrow your search by using and adding filters.
- CQL filters: add CQL filters for even more precise search.
- Search help: get tips effective searching and advanced search methods.
We recommend you don't use special characters in page or attachment names, as the page or attachment may not be found by Confluence search, and may cause some Confluence functions to behave unexpectedly.
Filter your search results
On the left of the search results page are options that allow you to filter the search results.
You'll can filter using the following fields:
Contributor – Restrict your search to content that's been modified (created, edited, or commented on) by a particular person. Start typing the person's username or part of their name and Confluence will offer you a list of possible matches.
Info You need to enter at least two letters. For example, if you enter just 'john s', the filter will look for users called 'john' and will ignore the 's'. - In space – Only search in a particular space or list of spaces. There are also preset groups of spaces – favorite (my spaces), site, and personal spaces – which you can choose from the list of suggested spaces. Tick the checkbox to include archived spaces if you need to.
- Last modified – Choose or enter a date range to only show content updated within a particular period of time.
- Of type – Only return content of a certain type, like pages, blog posts, or comments.
Advanced search
Still need more ways to search? For more advanced search syntax, check out Confluence Search Syntax for more ways to refine the text you enter in the search field. You can also read Confluence Search Fields for special parameters you can use to search various types of content metadata.