Advanced search

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Use advanced search to find exactly what you need across your entire GitLab instance.

With advanced search:

Identify code patterns across all projects to refactor shared components more efficiently.
Locate security vulnerabilities in dependencies across your entire organization at once.
Track usage of deprecated functions or libraries throughout all repositories.
Find discussions buried in issues, merge requests, or comments.
Discover existing solutions instead of reinventing functionality that already exists.

Advanced search works in projects, issues, merge requests, milestones, users, epics, code, comments, commits, and wikis.

Enable advanced search

For GitLab.com and GitLab Dedicated, advanced search is enabled in paid subscriptions.
For GitLab Self-Managed, an administrator must enable advanced search.

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Advanced search uses simple_query_string, which supports both exact and fuzzy queries.

When you search for a user, the fuzzy query is used by default. You can refine user search with simple_query_string.

Syntax	Description	Example
`filename:`	Filename	`filename:*spec.rb`
`path:`	Repository location (full or partial matches)	`path:spec/workers/`
`extension:`	File extension without `.` (exact matches only)	`extension:js`
`blob:`	Git object ID (exact matches only)	`blob:998707*`

Query	Description
`rails -filename:gemfile.lock`	Returns `rails` in all files except the `gemfile.lock` file.
`RSpec.describe Resolvers -*builder`	Returns `RSpec.describe Resolvers` that does not start with `builder`.
`bug \| (display +banner)`	Returns `bug` or both `display` and `banner`.
`helper -extension:yml -extension:js`	Returns `helper` in all files except files with a `.yml` or `.js` extension.
`helper path:lib/git`	Returns `helper` in all files with a `lib/git*` path (for example, `spec/lib/gitlab`).

You can only search files smaller than 1 MB. For more information, see issue 195764. For GitLab Self-Managed, an administrator can configure the Maximum file size indexed setting.
You can use advanced search on the default branch of a project only. For more information, see issue 229966.
The search query must not contain any of the following characters:
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```
. , : ; / ` ' = ? $ & ^ | < > ( ) { } [ ] @
```
For more information, see issue 325234.
Search results show only the first match in a file. For more information, see issue 668.

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