Quick guide to searching in Confluence:

  1. Use the search box at the top right of your Confluence screen. It offers you a quick navigation aid as well as a full site search.
  2. You can search for administrative actions via the quick navigation aid too.
  3. You can search Confluence directly from your browser's search box. Just add your Confluence site as a search provider using the dropdown menu in your browser's search box.
  4.  While editing a page or a blog post, you can find and replace text on the page. See Using the Editor.

Using the quick navigation aid to find content and administrative actions

The quick navigation aid automatically offers a dropdown list of pages, administrative options, and other items. The items are matched by page name to your search query. You can choose one of the offered items or ignore them altogether.

To use the quick navigation aid to find content:

  1. Start typing your query into the search box located at the top right-hand corner of every screen. Confluence matches titles as you type, showing a quickly-adjusting dropdown list of pages, blog posts, personal profiles, attachments and so on.
    Press the Enter key if you want to bypass the quick navigation aid and perform a full search, as described below.
  2. To see the space to which an item belongs, let your mouse pointer hover over the item in the dropdown list.
  3. Use the up- and down-arrows on your keyboard to move up and down the list of matching titles and select an item.
  4. Press the Enter key to open the selected item.
  5. If you do not find what you are looking for, click Search for at the bottom of the list to do a full search. This has the same effect as pressing Enter immediately after typing your search query. The full search is described below.

To use the quick navigation aid to get to administration functions: Start typing what you want to do into the Confluence search box. The matching administrative functions will appear with a cog icon at the top of the dropdown search results.

Even faster via 'GG': Press 'G' twice on your keyboard then continue typing the search term.

Screenshot: The quick navigation aid showing titles matching the query 'st'

 

Here is more information about how the quick navigation feature works:

  • Confluence will truncate any titles that are too long to be displayed.
  • The matching items are grouped by type so that you can quickly find the type you want. Confluence shows a maximum of 3 administrative items, 6 pages and/or blog posts, 2 attachments, 3 people and 2 spaces. If no matches are found in a particular category, then that category does not appear in the list.
  • Items are ordered with the most recent updates first.
  • When the matching item is a person's name, their profile picture appears next to their name in the list.
  • The part of the title that is matched by the search query is highlighted in bold text.
  • Your Confluence Administrator can enable or disable the quick navigation feature using the Confluence Administration Console.

Notes about finding administrative options via the search box:
  • Pressing 'GG' puts your cursor into the search box.
  • The 'GG' combination is familiar to JIRA users, because the same shortcut opens the JIRA administration search dialog.
  • System administration, Confluence administration and space administration options may appear in the search results.
  • Confluence permissions determine the administrative options that appear in the search results. You will only see the options that you have permission to perform.

Performing a full search

When you perform a full search, Confluence will search all content in all spaces (site and personal), mail, personal profiles, attachments and the space description. The results will appear on a new screen.

全検索を実行するには:

  1. Type your query into the search box located at the top right-hand corner of every screen (or type it into the text box at the top of the Search screen).
  2. Press the Enter key. (This means that you will ignore the dropdown list of titles offered by Confluence's quick navigation aid, described above.)
  3. The Search screen appears, as shown below. If any Confluence pages or items match your search query, the Search screen shows a list of the matching items.
  4. Click an item's title to open the Confluence page or other item.

Screenshot: Results of searching for 'permissions'


On the left of the screen you will see a text block for each item that matched the search criteria, with the following information for each item:

  • An icon representing the content type (user profile, space, page, blog post, etc).
  • The title or name of the content item.
  • For attachments: The size and type of file, with a link to download or view the attachment where relevant. See information on viewing Office attachments below.
  • For image files: A thumbnail of the image will display to the right of the file name.
  • 項目内コンテンツから最も関連性の高い部分を数行。検索語に一致する語句がコンテンツ内でハイライト表示されます。
  • For personal profile items: The email address.
  • 項目の所属先のスペースがテキストの最終行に表示されます。
  • コンテンツの最終修正日。

You will see only search results which you have permission to view.

On the right of the screen are further options which allow you to tailor or filter your search results. See below.

Viewing attached Office documents

When the search results include an attached Office document, you will see a View link as shown in the screen snippet below.

Screenshot: Search results include an attached Office document with 'View' link


Click the View link to view the content of the Office document within Confluence. If you have an Office application installed, you will also be able to launch your Office editor from within Confluence. See Displaying Office Files in Confluence and Working with the Office Connector.

Accepting 'Did you mean' suggestions from Confluence

When you perform a full Confluence search, as described above, Confluence may offer you an alternative spelling of your search query. The alternative spelling will appear next to the words 'Did you mean', as shown in the example below.

To accept an alternative spelling suggestion:

  1. Type your query into the search box.
  2. Press the Enter key.
  3. Confluence will analyse the wiki content, to determine whether an alternative spelling of your search query occurs more often in the wiki content. If this is the case, the words 'Did you mean' will appear on the screen, along with an alternative spelling for your search query.
  4. If you want to try the alternative spelling, click the word showing the suggested spelling. In the example below, you would click confluence.

Screenshot: The Search screen with 'Did you mean' offering a corrected spelling


Here is more information about how the 'Did you mean' feature works:

  • Confluence uses both a dictionary (bundled with Confluence) and words mined from the content on your system to work out the best alternative spellings of your search terms. Practically, this means that Confluence can provide spelling corrections for specialised jargon that may not appear in a standard dictionary. In general, when deciding between alternative spellings, Confluence will favour words that appear more often in your content.
  • In some cases, the 'Did you mean' suggestion may appear even when there are Confluence pages, etc, which match your search query. In other cases, there will be no items which match your search criteria. In both cases, Confluence will offer a 'Did you mean' suggestion if there is a word which will help you find more relevant content.
  • The 'Did you mean' feature may offer more than one suggestion.
  • The 'Did you mean' suggestion may even offer an incorrect spelling. This would happen if the incorrect spelling occurs many times within your Confluence site. This is intentional, because the aim of the 'Did you mean' feature is to help you find content, not to correct your spelling.
  • Your Confluence Administrator can enable or disable the 'Did you mean' feature using the Confluence Administration Console.

Filtering your search results

The Search screen, pictured above, appears when you do your first search. By default, Confluence will search all content across your Confluence site, including all spaces, mail archives, attachments and all other content types.

On the right of the screen are options which allow you to tailor or filter the search results.

Enter your filter criteria as described below, then click Filter.

  • Where — Restrict your search results to a particular space, or to your favourite spaces, site spaces or personal spaces.
  • What — Restrict your search results to a particular content type (pages, blog posts, mail, etc).
  • When — Restrict your search results to content modified within a particular period of time (today, yesterday, within the last week or within the last month).
  • Who— Restrict your search results to content last modified by a particular user. You can start typing the person's username or part of their name into the text box as follows:
    • Type the username (e.g. 'jsmith').
    • Or start typing the person's first name (e.g. 'john')
    • Or their last name (e.g. 'smith').
    • Or another part of their name, such as a middle name.
      Confluence will offer you a list of possible matches. Use your mouse to select the person you want, then press the Enter key to filter the search results.

More information about the user-matching filter:

  • The user-matching filter is not case sensitive. You can enter upper or lower case letters and will receive the same results.
  • When looking for users to match the name you entered, Confluence divides a person's name into logical units corresponding to first name, middle name (one or more) and last name. It matches the letters of each unit in the name you entered against the letters of each unit in the user directory. For example, you can enter 'jo sm' to look for John Smith. The search is triggered after you have entered at least two letters.
  • For each part of the name, you need to enter at least two letters. For example, if you enter just 'john s', the filter will look for users called 'john' and will ignore the 's'. Similarly, if you enter 'j smith' you will see everyone with the name 'smith' even if their first name does not start with a 'j'.
  • You are not forced to use the auto-complete list. You can just type 'jsmith' or 'jo sm' and filter on that without choosing a match from the dropdown list. Confluence will warn you if there is more than one user corresponding to the name you have entered.

Click Clear Filter if you want to remove all your filters and perform the same search again but without the filter.

Using labels in the search

ラベルの検索

'labelText:' 接頭語を使用して、特定のラベルのついたコンテンツを具体的に検索します。下記の表に Confluence 検索ボックスに入力可能な検索語の例と、予測される検索結果を表示しています。

検索対象

返されるコンテンツの内容

recipe labelText:chocolate

contains the word 'recipe' or has the label 'chocolate'

recipe AND labelText:chocolate

contains the word 'recipe' and has the label 'chocolate'

labelText:cake labelText:chocolate

has the label 'cake' or the label 'chocolate'

labelText:cake AND labelText:chocolate

has both labels 'cake' and 'chocolate'

The 'labelText:' prefix is an example of a search field. See more about Confluence Search Fields.

Browsing related labels

On the right of the search screen, Confluence offers a list of labels which are related to your search query. See the screenshot above. You can click a label to see all pages and blog posts tagged with that label. See Viewing Labels and Labelled Content.

添付ファイルのコンテンツの検索

Confluence を検索する際、既定値では検索には以下の種類の添付ファイルが含まれます。

  • Word
  • Text
  • PowerPoint
  • Excel
  • PDF
  • HTML

To search the content of other attachment types, you will need to use an attachment content extractor plugin. (Not applicable to Confluence OnDemand.) For more information, take a look at the following:

Search options when using the Documentation theme

ドキュメンテーションテーマを使用する場合、Confluence 検索で、以下に示すいくつかのオプションを利用できます。

ページの右上にある検索ボックスを使用する:

  • デフォルトでは、Confluence の主な検索はConfluence 全体を検索する設定になっています。
    • ページの右上の検索ボックスに「Confluence を検索」と表示されます。
    • Confluence 検索では Confluence 全体を検索します。 これは他のテーマでも既定の挙動です。
  • スペース管理者は、現在のスペースの検索制限をドキュメンテーションテーマに設定できます。
    • ページの右上の検索ボックスに「スペースを検索」と表示されます。
    • 現在のスペースからのみ、検索結果が返されます。
    • 検索制限は上書きできます。サイト全体を検索するには、「all:」と検索語を入力します。たとえば、サイト全体で「technical writing」を検索するには、ページ右上の検索窓に次のように入力します。
      all: technical writing
      

左パネルの検索ボックスを使用する:

  • デフォルトでは、ドキュメンテーションテーマの左パネルには検索ボックスが表示されます。検索ワードを入力し、現在のスペースの検索に制限をかけます。具体的には、スペース ホームページの子ページのみを検索します。
  • 管理者が現在のページの主な検索を制限している場合は、左パネルに検索ボックスは表示されません。

For screenshots and a full description, see Using the Documentation Theme.

高度な検索構文

See Confluence Search Syntax for more ways to refine the text you enter into the search box.

Additionally, see Confluence Search Fields for special parameters you can use in the search box to search on various metadata.

Searching Confluence from your browser's search box

If you are using Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 or later, you can add add your Confluence site as a search provider, using the dropdown menu next to the browser's search box.

The example below shows the 'Extranet' Confluence site offered for inclusion as a search engine in the browser's search box.

Screenshot: Adding your Confluence site to your browser's search box

OpenSearch 関する情報:

  • Confluence supports the autodiscovery part of the OpenSearch standard, by supplying an OpenSearch description document. This is an XML file that describes the web interface provided by Confluence's search function.
  • Any client applications that support OpenSearch will be able to add Confluence to their list of search engines.
  • Your Confluence Administrator can enable or disable the Open Search feature using the Confluence Administration Console.

Useful plugins (Not applicable to Confluence OnDemand.)

Before installing an add-on (also called a plugin) into your Confluence site, please check the add-on's information page to see whether it is supported by Atlassian, by another vendor, or not at all. See our guidelines on add-on support.

This plugin extends the Confluence search, so that you can search for macro parameter names and values: the Confluence Macro Indexer plugin.