Search Window

Geeqie provides a utility to find one or more images based on various parameters.

To display a new Search Window press F3 or select Search from the File menu.

To start a search activate the Find button or press Ctrl + Enter . A search in progress can be stopped by activating the Stop button or press Ctrl + Enter .

The progress of an active search is displayed as a progress bar at the bottom of the window. The progress bar will also display the total files that match the search parameters, and the total number of files searched.

When a search is completed, the total number of files found and their total size will be displayed in the status bar.

Search location

One of several locations can be chosen as the source to use in the search.

Path
The search will include files located in the selected folder, enable the Recurse check box to include the contents of all sub folders.
Comments
This option is only for use with GqView legacy metadata.

The search will include all files that have a keyword or comment associated to it.
Only keyword and comment associations stored in the user's home folder are included in this search type.
Results
The search will include all files currently listed in the results list. Use this to refine a previous search.
Collection
The search will include all files in the selected collection.

Search parameters

Each search parameter can be enabled or disabled with the check box to its left. For a file to be a match, all enabled parameters must be true.

File
If "name is" is selected, the search will match if the text exactly matches the file name. If "name contains" or "path contains" is selected, the search will match if the entered text appears within the file name or path.

The text comparison can be made to be case sensitive by enabling the Match case checkbox.

The search can be restricted to symbolic links by enabling the Symbolic Link checkbox.

If "contains" or "path contains" is selected, Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are used.
File size
The search will match if the file size on disk is equal to, less than, greater than, or between the entered value, depending on the method selected from the drop down menu. The between test is inclusive - for example a file of size 10 will match if the size parameters are between 10 and 15.
File date
The search will match if the file date is equal to, before, after, or between the entered date, depending on the method selected from the drop down menu. The between test is inclusive, for example a file with date of 10/04/2003 will match if the date parameters are between 10/04/2003 and 12/31/2003.

For convenience, the button displays a pop up calendar to enter the date.

One of four date types may be selected. They are described in the Reference section .
If an image does not have an exif date, it will default to 01 January 1970.
Image dimensions
The search will match if the image dimensions are equal to, less than, greater than, or between the entered values, depending on the method selected from the drop down menu. The between test is inclusive.

The image dimensions test is simple, both width and height must be within the allowed values for a match.
Image content
The search will match if the image contents are similar within the percentage value, inclusive. This uses the same test and data that is used to determine image similarity when Finding Duplicates . The entry is for entering the path for the image to use in this test.
Keywords
The search will match if the file's associated keywords match all, match any, or exclude the entered keywords, depending on the method selected from the drop down menu. Keywords can be separated with a space, comma, or tab character.
Comment
The search will match if the file's Comments field contains the entered pattern. Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are used.
Geocoded position
The search will match if the file's GPS position is less than or greater than the selected distance from the specified position, or is not geocoded, depending on the method selected from the drop down menu. The search location can be specified by
  • Type in a latitude/longitude in the format 89.123 179.123
  • Drag-and-drop a geocoded image onto the search box
  • If Geeqie's map is displayed, a left-click on the map will store the latitude/longitude under the mouse cursor into the clipboard. It can then be pasted into the search box.
  • Copy-and-paste (in some circumstances drag-and-drop) the result of an Internet search.
In this last case, the result of a search may contain the latitude/longitude embedded in the URL. This may be automatically decoded with the help of an external file:-
$HOME/.config/geeqie/geocode-parameters.awk
See Decoding Latitude and Longitude for details on how to create this file.
Class
The search will match if the file's class is, or is not, one of the following types.
  • Unknown
  • Image
  • Raw Image
  • Video
  • Document
  • Metadata
  • Unknown
  • Broken (Of class Image, Raw Image, Video, or Document, but Geeqie cannot display an image)
Marks
The search will match if the file does or does not have a mark attached to it. Refer to Marking Images .

Results list

Files that match the parameters of the search are shown in the list. By default they are displayed in the order that they are found. To sort the results list by a column, activate or click the column title. Activating a column that is already used to sort the list will toggle between increasing and decreasing sort order.

A context menu is available for the result list by right clicking the mouse or pressing the Menu key when a row has the focus.

The Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts available are listed here.

The image Dimensions column of the result list will only contain dimension information when dimensions are included in the search parameters.

Status bar

At the bottom of the search window is an area that includes the following items from left to right:

Thumbnails
Enable this check box to display a thumbnail next to each image in the results list.
File count display
Displays the total count of files in the results list, and their size on disk. The count of selected files will appear in parenthesis.
Search progress
When a search is active, the text “Searching...” will appear here. Two numbers in parenthesis will also be displayed, the first number is the number of files that match the search parameters and the second number is the total number of files that were searched.
Find
Activate the find button to start a search with the selected parameters.
Stop
Activate the stop button to end a search that is in progress.

Drag and Drop

Drag and drop can be initiated with the primary or middle mouse buttons. Dragging a file that is selected will include all selected files in the drag. Dragging a file that is not selected will first change the selection to the dragged file, and clear the previous selection.