# Searching in Pootle

Pootle provides search functionality that allows translators and reviewers to search through translations for some text. The search box is shown close to the top of the page. Searching can be used to find specific things you want to work on, see how issues were solved before, or to verify consistency in your translations.

Search results are up to date, and will reflect the current translations in Pootle.

## Search domain

It is important to realize that when a new search term is entered, searching will take place inside the currently viewed domain. If you are currently at the top level of your project, the whole project will be searched. If you are viewing a directory, only files under that directory will be searched. If you are already viewing/translating a file, only that file will be searched.

The first result will be shown in context in the file where it is found. When you click “Skip”, “Suggest” or “Translate” it will provide the next match to the search (in the original domain) until all matches were presented. Remember that if you edit the search query while viewing search results in a specific file, your new query will only search in that specific file.

## Advanced search

When you enter a search box a dropdown will open allowing you to limit or expand your search to specific fields. Any combination of these fields and options is accepted.

Fields that you can search in include:

- Source Text – the original reference text.
- Target Text (default) – the translations.
- Comments – any comments with the translation.
- Location – any location, key or ID value.

Options:

- Phrase Match (default: off) – search matching specified phrase. With this option on searching for “file table” will not find “table file”.
- Case-sensitive Match (default: off) – search in a case sensitive manner. With this option on searching for “File” will not find “file”.