How do I exclude folders that start with a dot/period (e.g. UNIX hidden folders)

Question

My PC is connected to a UNIX network, and I can access all the files on my UNIX system as it is mapped to my N: drive. Therefore I might have a file N:\filename.txt or a folder n:\foldername. A number of UNIX folders have a dot as their first character, e.g. N:\.tempfiles and I would really like to exclude these from my searches. I've found the persistent search filter functionality but I'm not sure how to set it up.

Answer 1

If you just want to exclude ANY folder which starts with a '.' then you're looking to exclude the pattern '\.', ie any folder path which includes a '.' preceeded by the path separator '\', which you do with the filter:

-\.

This can be tested in the Look In field by setting the expression type to Plain Text and applying a location filter, e.g.

If you want that location filter to permanently apply to all searches then add -\. as a persistent filter:

---

Drive specific filter

If you want it to only apply to searches on the 'N' drive then it's a little more complicated. You'd need to specify the filter as a regex, e.g. test with

N:\Search;-:regex:^N:.*\\\.

Then if that's what you want add a Regular Expression persistent filter of:

-^N:.*\\\.