XnView Software

Is there a way in the Search dialog (Ctrl-F) to search against all files in the catalog, regardless of folder/location?

If I leave the Folder field empty, XnViewMP does one of two things:
- If I have search in catalog only checked, it instantly tells me there are zero results, even if there are many files in the catalog that match the search.
- If I have search in catalog only UNchecked, it starts searching every folder on the drive where XnViewMP is installed.

The first behavior seems wrong, and the second behavior is not what I want. Putting * in the folder field does not help.

So the search box seems obsessed with only searching in a particular folder and its subdirectories. This has consequences:
If you have files on multiple drives, a single search cannot find them, even if they are in the catalog!
If you have files in two equal level folders in the root directory (like V:\Photos1 and V:\Photos2) then you cannot search them both without searching the entire V drive.

Am I missing something here or doing something wrong? If there is actually no way to search the entire catalog and not just one folder in it, that seems very bad.

Thanks for any clarity that can be provided...

right folder field can't be empty
Thanks to your detailed description I can reproduce the problem.

So in your fix, if "Search in catalog only" is CHECKED, and folder field is EMPTY, then filename *.TIFF will find all TIFF files currently in the catalog, regardless of location?

And if "Search in catalog only" is NOT CHECKED, what is the behavior of an empty folder field supposed to be? Does it search the boot drive, or the drive XnViewMP is installed on, or all mounted drives?

jkm wrote: Wed Aug 27, 2025 6:30 pm So in your fix, if "Search in catalog only" is CHECKED, and folder field is EMPTY, then filename *.TIFF will find all TIFF files currently in the catalog, regardless of location?

yes

And if "Search in catalog only" is NOT CHECKED, what is the behavior of an empty folder field supposed to be? Does it search the boot drive, or the drive XnViewMP is installed on, or all mounted drives?

it starts on current folder

That sounds excellent. Thank you!