Search in Brandfolder

Search in Brandfolder

Who can use this?

Plans:

  • Brandfolder

Permissions:

Users can search their organization’s assets.

Find out if this capability is included in Smartsheet Regions or Smartsheet Gov.

Searching in Brandfolder by Smartsheet increases the findability of your most valuable assets. Exposing internal search functions helps you better understand the organization’s taxonomy and makes it easier to find desired assets.

You can search in your Brandfolder or a specific collection of your Brandfolder.

To search in your Brandfolder:

When you select your Brandfolder, you arrive at the main page, where you can see the total number of Assets, Collections, and Workspaces it contains.

Brandfolder Image
Brandfolder search

Below is the search bar, where you can type keywords related to the asset you’re looking for.

To search in a Collection:

Select the arrow at the right of the number of Collections in your Brandfolder and select the Collection you want to search into.

When you select the Collection, you arrive at a similar screen where you’ll find the search bar to look for assets inside your Collection.
Brandfolder Image Brandfolder search

Navigation

Select the X in the results bar to clear search results, or hit the ESC key.
You can hit CMD+F on OSX or CTRL+F on Windows to begin searching from anywhere in the Brandfolder.


Narrow your search

Whether you are looking for assets in your Brandfolder or a Collection, you have four options to narrow down your search:

  1. Any of these terms: This search includes all options and allows flexibility for returned results. Use this search when unsure of the asset name or tags. Only one of the terms must match to return an asset.
    • For example, when searching for cliff divers, the query will return any asset with cliff OR divers present in at least one indexed field.
  2. All of these terms: This option allows more precision in your search by replacing the flexibility of OR with AND.
    • For example, when searching for cliff divers, the result will return any asset with cliff AND divers across indexed fields. The two terms don’t need to be part of the same field (cliff could be in the name while divers might be a tag), but all terms must be present somewhere for an asset to match.
  3. Contains this phrase: This option is an excellent choice if you know part of an asset’s name or a bit of text in its description.
    • For example, when searching for cliff divers, using this phrase will pull in all assets that contain the phrase. An asset named “cliff divers” in the ocean appears as the name includes cliff divers. However, it won’t return results where the terms are across multiple indexed fields.
  4. Exactly this phrase: This is the strictest of the four options and requires users to be precise when searching.
    • For example, searching cliff divers with this option wouldn’t return an asset named cliff divers in the ocean in your results. You need to type the full name, nothing less and nothing more, for an asset to match.

Search operators 

Brandfolder has a few search operators that allow you to customize search syntaxes easily.

  1. OR is the default search operator, meaning if you search for blue gray, it will search for assets containing blue OR gray. By default, OR is implied as the operator to use between search terms.
  2. AND allows for both search terms to appear in results. You can change the search operator to AND by explicitly adding the keyword AND (all caps) or && in between search terms.
  • tags:logo AND blue
  • tags:logo && blue
  1. NOT can be added to the beginning of a search to pull the opposite of what you are searching for or to exclude something specific. For example, you can use it to find assets that do not include a specific tag. 
  • NOT tags: “logo”
  1. * you can add an asterisk to act as a wild card operator. Wildcard operators take the place of one or more characters in a search term. 
  • NOT label: * will pull all assets that do not have a label associated with the asset.

Search options

Every Brandfolder is fully indexed, making finding the exact asset you need easy. Search is case insensitive (except for OR and AND search operators), meaning LOGO and logo return the same results.

Here’s an exhaustive list of details you can use to scope your search:

Searchable topic
 
Search syntax
Approved approved:true
Asset Key asset_key:"key"
Asset Name name:"asset name"
Asset Type asset_type:"font"
Collection collection:"collection name"
Created at created_at:year-month-day
created_at:>now-10m(assets created in the last 10 minutes)
Creator - assets uploaded by a certain user creator: first name last name
Custom Fields single value custom_fields.custom field key:"custom field value"
Custom Field with no value NOT custom_fields.Example_Key:(*)
Custom Field multi-value Custom_fields.custom field key:"Value 1" AND "Value 2" AND "Value 3"
Description Description: "text from description"
Does not have comments comments:false
has_comments:false
Email support@brandfolder.com
Expired expired:true
Expired at expires_at:year-month-day
expires_at:[year-month-day TO year-month-day]
expires_at:>now-30d
Expires in the next two weeks expires_at:[now TO now+14d]
Extensions extension:"jpg"
Filenames filename:"filename here"
Has comments comments:true
has_comments:true
Labels Labels:"label name"
Metadata metadata.key:"value"
No availability set NOT published_at:*
NOT expires_at:*
expired:false
Published At published_at:year-month-day
Section name section:"section name"
Size measured in bytes (example>90gb) Size: (size:>90000000000)
Subcollection collection:"subcollection name"
Tags Tags:"tag" or tags.strict:"tag"
Template Assets extension:"bftemplate"
Unapproved approved:false
Updated at updated_at
updated_at:>now-1d (assets updated in the last day)
View only assets view_only:true
Width & height Width:3000 AND height: 3000

If you want to search phrases or terms with multiple words, wrap the phrase in quotation marks. For example, Brandfolder considers “blue fox jumps” as a single search term, whereas blue fox jumps are three separate search terms and results in searching for blue OR fox OR jumps.

You can use the search bar and double quotes to search based on SKU, using a query formatted as: “SKU+SKU number,” for example: “SKU1234” OR “SKU2345”.

Short-hand search syntax

If you want to search for assets with multiple tags, there is no need to type tags:logo OR tags: “product shots” OR tags:image. You can write this search as:

  • tags:(logo "product shots" image)

Remember OR is implied between search terms, and you can override the same query to use the AND operator with

  • tags:(logo AND "product shots" AND image)

Wild cards and “fuzzy” matching

If you want to find any asset that partially matches a search query, use the * wildcard operator:

  • prod*

This will return assets that contain words like “product” or “production.” Likewise, if you want to find assets that have words close to your search term (essentially misspellings), use the fuzzy match operator:

  • wednesday~

will match assets with Wednesday as well as the common misspelling wendsday.

You must add wildcards at the end of the search syntax.

Reserved search characters

> < ( ) { } [ ]” * : are reserved characters and cannot be used as/in search terms. Instead, you can use them as search operators that modify your query.

Likewise, ! ? + - / ~ ^ = characters have special meanings, but Brandfolder’s search is smart enough to know when you’re searching for the phrase “Look out!” as opposed to looking for any asset that does not match the word “logo” (in the case of !logo).


Share searches

After you input the search syntax into the search bar, you can share that search. To do so:

  1. Select Share Search  Brandfolder Image Share search icon Brandfolder at the end of the search bar. 
  2. A new modal will appear that states, send the link below to someone, and they will see this Brandfolder initially filtered for [search syntax]. 
  3. Select Copy
  4. Distribute the link; anyone with the link can view the Brandfolder. 

Utilize Brandfolder structure to search

Who can use this?

Plans:

  • Brandfolder

Permissions:

Guest users can search their organization’s assets.

Find out if this capability is included in Smartsheet Regions or Smartsheet Gov.

Sections

Sections appear across the top of your Brandfolder and Brandfolder Collections.

They are the broadest way of organizing assets in a Brandfolder and are commonly used to separate assets by their category, type, or purpose. Selecting a section's name shows you all the assets within the section.

Pins

Pins appear right above the search bar. Brandfolder Admins create pins to highlight frequently used search terms. Admins will feature the most relevant pins above the search bar, but you can find additional pins by selecting the pin icon to the left of the search bar.

Labels

If your account has labels, they appear on the left of the Brandfolder or Collection you access. You can open the labels drawer by selecting the two arrow icons. You can view sub-labels by double-clicking on the top-level label.

Additionally, you can use pins or sections in tandem with labels. For example, if you select a pin and browse labels, you have more refined results.

The only labels visible in a collection are those associated with assets in the collection. If an asset is in both the Seasonal Ads label and the Holiday collection, the Seasonal Ads label will appear when you access the Holiday collection.

Advanced filters

Select Filters next to the search bar to open the advanced filters drawer. There, you can search by tags, file types, custom fields, orientation, SKU search, or upload date. You can also combine multiple filters to narrow your search results further.

Brandfolder Image
Brandfolder filters drawer expanded.

Select Clear at the top of the advanced filter drawer to clear your search results.

Use View Search Query to see how Brandfolder search filters assets.


View options

When a Guest user visits Brandfolder for the first time, the view options are set to Brandfolder defaults. Select View Options to change the following:

  • Layout: Use the standard grid view or the optional list view.
  • Assets per section: The default displays 32 assets per section. Users can view 10, 32, 75, 150, 300, or 1000 assets per section.
  • Show custom fields: If custom fields are on the account, users can view the key and value fields in either the grid or list view.
  • Asset info: Display asset info and tags in an alternate language.

Organize and sort

Toggle Organize by section to change whether search results are divided by section or displayed as one group.

The Sort by dropdown allows users to choose from many options such as (creation date, upload date, updated, name, or popularity). If Brandfolder Administrators manually place assets into a specific order, then Guest users will also have a Sort by Position option.

Brandfolder Image
Brandfolder sort by and organize by options.

If Organize by Section is on, you will see arrows to navigate between assets when opening the asset modal.