Sorting and Filtering in Explorer

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Windows Explorer is very versatile in the very many different ways that can show you your files and folders. So we're gonna have a look at some of the different views you have.

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And it also allows you to do a lot of sorting, filtering and searching and makes that relatively easy by using the metadata of a file.

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Metadata is data about the files, such as its size, its creation date the name of the file, obviously, what day to modified it and what type of file it is. Is it an application? Is it a document? Is it an Excel spreadsheet and so on?

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And then files can also not only be sorted by that metadata, they can also be filtered.

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For example, you might want to see only their fires you created recently, or you might want to see only application piles. So let's have a look at all the

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views and options available within Windows Explorer.

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Let's take a look at some of the features available in Windows Explorer to help you work with files

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so you can see a folder here with many different types of files in it,

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and one of the first things we can do is we can look at these files in a variety of different ways. For example, I can view them as icons.

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And although most of these icons just represent a type of file, some of them you'll see, actually show you the contents of the files as well.

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You can also look in a simple list view

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in list if you just get a listing of the fires without any of what we call the metadata, that is information about the files.

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If you want to see the meta data, you can go to the view menu and choose details.

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And here

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you could see not only the names of the fires but also the date they were modified. What type of file it is and the size of the file

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for, the more

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we can re order these files. For example, if I want to see them in order of size, I can click on the Sides column heading

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and it reorganizes the files in order of largest to spa list. If I click again

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now, it's the other way around is showing the smallest files of the top and the largest fires at the bottom

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similarly, I can sort by type.

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So now all the application files were at the top.

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BMP files are down here and so on.

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I can do this also by the datemodified, so I could re order by date.

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And of course, I can reorder by file name

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either alphabetically from a to Z

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or in

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reverse alphabetical order.

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If you need to find a particular file,

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there is a search box up here

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and in the search box. I can type in all or part of the name of the file.

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So if I'm looking for a file called right Thorpey XY,

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I can start typing that in

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now. As I do that you see filter side

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the list to show you just the file that you're looking for.

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We can also filter in this way

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you can,

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or each column heading

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there is an arrow

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when you click on that and give you some filtering options. So here, for example, where I have clicked on the arrow for name,

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I can check the box to say only show me fires that begin with the letters A to H

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But also show me the files that begin with the letters Q to Z

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in a similar way you can filter by date.

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In this case, you get a calendar, and you could look for a file that was modified on a particular day. Or we have these kind of interesting categories down here

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so far. So we've modified today

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yesterday

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earlier this year,

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and however, Microsoft defines this a long time ago.

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Similarly, when we click on the arrow next to type

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you see, I could say, OK, I just want to see application files

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and nothing else.

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As far as size goes,

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we have these categories small, medium or large. So if I only want to see small files, I can check this box

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large files for that box and so on.

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The search option can also be accessed from the start menu. So if I go into here,

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click on the start button

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and start typing the name of a file.

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You'll see it's coming up here so I can click on it

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and it opens up the file.

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Now. That file was located in this folder,

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so it searched through the various folders where I keep my files,

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and this would include things like what's on the desktop

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in the Downloads folder, the documents, folder, pictures, folder, music folder and so on.

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In this case, these files are located in a folder that's on my desktop.

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One bit of metadata that maybe a little bit tricky is looking at the sizes of files and folders. If you look here,

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we can't see the size of files.

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But when you look at folders, you'll see that Windows Explorer doesn't show you the size of the folder or how many files were inside it. So for a folder

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you can right click on it,

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go to its properties

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and you can see here the total size of the folder. And

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if there's any files or folders within the folder,

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similarly, you can right click on any file and go to its properties,

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and here you can see the total size of the file.

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Next, we're gonna have a look at how to manipulate files. So we've seen that to open a document or run a program, you can double click the file,

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or you can also right click it and choose open from the pop up menu.

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You can also, of course, copy files and delete files, say files, move fires and renamed files. So let's go ahead and look at some of those capabilities.

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So now we're going to look at how to copy, move, cut, paste, delete and renamed files.

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So there's the folder that I've been working with

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on DDE.

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There's another folder that's empty.

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So first of all, let's look at copying one of these files across to them.

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Probably the easiest way to do it is right. Click on the file

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and drag it over

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while holding the button down.

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When you've got it to the destination, release the button on a menu pops up,

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so here I can choose Copy here.

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So now a copy of that file has been created in another folder.

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It's also useful to know, by the way, if you do this by accident that you can right click on a blank area and you can undo

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what you lasted so I can undo the copying of file.

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Now, let's look at moving the file.

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Guess what? It's gonna be different.

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I had right click drag over release and choose move,

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and that's what's happened. The file has been moved. The original is now gone from the source folder.

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There's only a copy in the destination folder,

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so again we can undo that if we need to.

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Now let's look ATT cut, copy and paste

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because it's actually another way of doing the same thing.

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For example, here is a copy and paste

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right click on the original file and choose copy,

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right click in the Destination folder and choose paste.

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What I've just done, of course, is exactly the same as dragging it across and copying it.

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And if I right click, you'll see says Undo, copy.

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So Windows knows what I've just done. Copied the file.

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What about cut and paste?

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Right? Click

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cut.

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Go to the Destination folder, right click and paste.

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That, of course, was a move,

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and Windows knows that. So when I right click,

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I can undo the move.

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Now let's look at deleting files

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before I delete any files. I just want to draw your attention to the recycle bin here.

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When you delete a file or a folder, it has moved into the recycle bin.

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The idea is that if you did that by accident, you can't go in there and recover your final folder.

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So let's right click the file

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and choose delete.

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And if you looked up there, you saw that

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the icon change slightly to indicate that there's now something in the recycle bin.

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If I right click and open the recycle bin,

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it shows me the file that's being placed in there.

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And if I wanted to

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restore that because I had deleted it by mistake,

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I could just right click on it and choose restore

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and that under elites it. And now my recycle bin again is showing an empty bin.

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There is a way, of course, off permanently removing the file.

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If I right click and deleted

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and it goes into the recycle bin,

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I can right click that and choose Empty the Recycle bin.

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And at that point,

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the file is

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going to be deleted

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and you'll see that window Pop Windows pops up with a warning, saying, Are you sure you want to permanently delete this file?

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And if I say yes, it'll go ahead and remove it,

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and now there's no easy way of recovering that file.

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And finally, let's look at renaming files.

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So to rename a file, you can simply right click on it and choose rename

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typing the new name that you want to give it

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on it and tough.

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So just continuing with this topic of manipulating files.

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Let's go ahead now and have a look at how to open and say files.

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So as you probably have gathered by now, if you have bean following the course so far, whenever you open a document in order to edit it or read it, it is copied from the hard disk and into Ram.

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Now, if you make changes to it, Wallets and Graham,

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those changes are not necessarily being saved back to disk.

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And remember, Ram is volatile, So if I open a document, I make changes to it. But I don't save it back to the disc. When I turn off the power, that document is lost.

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So if you do make a change to a file, you can choose between the following. You can choose to save it. This will save whatever changes you have made and overwrite the previous version of the file

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you can choose. Do not save it and discard any changes you have just made,

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or you can choose to save it under a different name, in which case you end up with two copies of the file the original and then your modified version saved under a new name.

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Let's take a look at opening a file, editing it on saving the changes.

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So here we have a file. It's a dot B m p file B M P stands for bit map.

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So this is actually a picture file.

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Now there are two ways I can open it. I can right click on it and choose open,

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or I can double click it.

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So if I double click it, you'll see it opens up in an application called the Windows Photos App.

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Let me close that for a minute

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and show you that if I right click and use open,

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that does exactly the same thing.

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Sometimes a fire can be opened up by many different types of programs on We want to be able to choose which program is actually used.

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So, for example, I could right click on this,

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and instead of just opening,

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I can go down here to open with.

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And what Windows shows me is that there's actually two programs. That's the photos I or I can use paint.

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So let me open it with paint this time

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and you'll see same file but inside a different application.

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Now, once I've got the file open, I can, of course, make changes to it.

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And at that point,

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those changes are being made in RAM, their not being safe to discuss.

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If you want to save them to desk, you have to go to the file menu

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and then to save.

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But I got a minute.

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What if I want to keep the original version on my new version?

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In that case, instead of saving it, which would overwrite the old version with the new version of the file

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I could choose Save eyes,

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choose what type of file I want to save it as.

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And then I could give it a different name

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up.

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So now I have two copies of the file, the original and the one I just modified.

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So just to show you that there's the original, I can open that up

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and you'll see doesn't have any of the green of it.

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The new one that I created went into my pictures folder,

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and we can open that

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and that does have the green in it.

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So now I have two copies of the file simply by making a change to the file and then using save as to save it under a different name.

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Now, what if I open up a file,

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make some changes to it,

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but I forget to save these. So what I just do is go ahead and close the program.

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Well, of course, Windows knows that I've made changes to it, So it pops up with this. Do you want to save the changes you just made

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so I could just say yes. I do want to save it or No, I don't want to save it because it may be that what did the changes I just made? I don't particularly like and I don't want to keep them.