XnView Software

I have no idea how to search in XnView... Like literally nothing shows up when I do a search.

I've categorized a bunch of files and now wish to search for files with a specific category. But no matter what I do, nothing shows up. I can click the category in the catalog filter and get to what I want, but since I've got so many categories it wold be faster to simply search for a specific category, adn I'd like to do search on files with multiple categories. Say like "forest" and "path" and "ruin" to see which images have all three of those.

But I can't for the life of me figure out how to do a basic search. I've got a file in the subfolders of the library named Worg and I've attached a category to the file as Worg. I can easily find it browsing the categories or the file structure. But I can't use search to find it.

What am I doing wrong?

Probably " Include folders" must be disabled.
I think this option means "Search in folders names"
You can leave the "filename" field empty, or containing *.jpg

You can also select two or more categories with Ctrl key, and exclude categories with Alt key, in the catalog filter.

Sometimes, all subcategories are automatically selected... So disable "Parent keywords" in Settings>Metadata ...

Ok. I can't make it do anything. The only way I can get a result is by searching the specific folder I know the file to be in, and then search for the file name. I can't just stand at the top of the repository and then ask it to search down through the subfolders based on only a selection of categories?

I'm just wondering how this search function actually works, because if I do this in Adobe Bridge, Mac Photos or pretty much any other image organizer I've tried, if I type a tag or two it will immediately show what I'm looking for. But using the little quick search field at top give no result no matter the search term unless I'm situated in the exact folder of the file. It doesn't seem to be able to search downwards in a the hierarchy of subfolders. Or at least I'm clueless as how to do it.

In Search, you kept only "recurse" and "use catalog" options, in "Folder" field, you entered the parent folder, in "File" field, nothing, and then in Categories > Contains, you selected one of them in the list, right ?

If no files were found, please try on a few photos staying in a folder whose path is short and in a local drive...

The "quick search" field works only on displayed photos in the browser. You can use View>Show files in subfolder, but it's not as efficient as classic search.