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Search¶

Nextcloud implements rfc5323 WebDAV search to allow clients to search for files on the server. WebDAV search allows for fairly complex search queries with filtering and sorting on multiple properties.

This document describes how to use WebDAV search with a Nextcloud server and provides some example queries, full details of the api can be found at rfc5323.

Making search requests¶

Search requests can be made by sending a SEARCH http request to https://cloud.example.com/remote.php/dav/ with a content type of text/xml and the query as xml in the request body.

For example, to search for text files for the user ‘test’:

curl -u username:password 'https://cloud.example.com/remote.php/dav/' -X SEARCH -u test:test -H "content-Type: text/xml" --data '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <d:searchrequest xmlns:d="DAV:" xmlns:oc="http://owncloud.org/ns">
     <d:basicsearch>
         <d:select>
             <d:prop>
                 <oc:fileid/>
                 <d:displayname/>
                 <d:getcontenttype/>
                 <d:getetag/>
                 <oc:size/>
             </d:prop>
         </d:select>
         <d:from>
             <d:scope>
                 <d:href>/files/test</d:href>
                 <d:depth>infinity</d:depth>
             </d:scope>
         </d:from>
         <d:where>
             <d:like>
                 <d:prop>
                     <d:getcontenttype/>
                 </d:prop>
                 <d:literal>text/%</d:literal>
             </d:like>
         </d:where>
         <d:orderby/>
    </d:basicsearch>
</d:searchrequest>'

Supported DAV properties¶

The following DAV properties are supported for use in either select, where and orderby, not all properties can be used for each operation.

Property name Description Selectable Searchable Sortable Type
{DAV:}displayname File name ✓ ✓ ✓ String
{DAV:}getcontenttype Mime type ✓ ✓ ✓ String
{DAV:}getlastmodified Modified date ✓ ✓ ✓ Datetime
{http://owncloud.org/ns}size File size or folder size ✓ ✓ ✓ Integer
{http://owncloud.org/ns}favorite Favorite status ✓ ✓ ✓ Boolean
{http://owncloud.org/ns}fileid Nextcloud file id ✓ ✓ ❌ Integer
{DAV:}resourcetype File or folder ✓ ❌ ❌ String
{DAV:}getcontentlength File size, not for folders ✓ ❌ ❌ String
{http://owncloud.org/ns}checksums Stored checksums for the file ✓ ❌ ❌ String
{http://owncloud.org/ns}permissions File permissions ✓ ❌ ❌ String
{DAV:}getetag File etag ✓ ❌ ❌ String
{http://owncloud.org/ns}owner-id File owner ✓ ❌ ❌ String
{http://owncloud.org/ns}owner-display-name File owner display name ✓ ❌ ❌ String
{http://owncloud.org/ns}data-fingerprint Fingerprint for recovery status ✓ ❌ ❌ String
{http://nextcloud.org/ns}has-preview Preview status ✓ ❌ ❌ Boolean

Search scope¶

All search queries are scoped to a single folder relative to the dav root. At the moment only search queries for files are supported meaning the the scope should always start with files/$username.

Inside the user’s files, any existing folder can be used as search scope.

Examples search bodies¶

Search for all plain text files in the folder Documents, sorted by size.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<d:searchrequest xmlns:d="DAV:" xmlns:oc="http://owncloud.org/ns">
    <d:basicsearch>
        <d:select>
            <d:prop>
                <d:displayname/>
            </d:prop>
        </d:select>
        <d:from>
            <d:scope>
                <d:href>/files/test/Documents</d:href>
                <d:depth>infinity</d:depth>
            </d:scope>
        </d:from>
        <d:where>
            <d:like>
                <d:prop>
                    <d:getcontenttype/>
                </d:prop>
                <d:literal>text/%</d:literal>
            </d:like>
        </d:where>
        <d:orderby>
            <d:prop>
                <oc:size/>
            </d:prop>
            <d:ascending/>
        </d:orderby>
    </d:basicsearch>
</d:searchrequest>

Get a file by id.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<d:searchrequest xmlns:d="DAV:" xmlns:oc="http://owncloud.org/ns">
    <d:basicsearch>
        <d:select>
            <d:prop>
                <d:displayname/>
            </d:prop>
        </d:select>
        <d:from>
            <d:scope>
                <d:href>/files/test</d:href>
                <d:depth>infinity</d:depth>
            </d:scope>
        </d:from>
        <d:where>
            <d:eq>
                <d:prop>
                    <oc:fileid/>
                </d:prop>
                <d:literal>12345</d:literal>
            </d:eq>
        </d:where>
        <d:orderby/>
    </d:basicsearch>
</d:searchrequest>

Get all png and jpg files over 10MB.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<d:searchrequest xmlns:d="DAV:" xmlns:oc="http://owncloud.org/ns">
    <d:basicsearch>
        <d:select>
            <d:prop>
                <d:displayname/>
            </d:prop>
        </d:select>
        <d:from>
            <d:scope>
                <d:href>/files/test</d:href>
                <d:depth>infinity</d:depth>
            </d:scope>
        </d:from>
        <d:where>
            <d:and>
                <d:or>
                    <d:eq>
                        <d:prop>
                            <d:getcontenttype/>
                        </d:prop>
                        <d:literal>image/png</d:literal>
                    </d:eq>
                    <d:eq>
                        <d:prop>
                            <d:getcontenttype/>
                        </d:prop>
                        <d:literal>image/jpg</d:literal>
                    </d:eq>
                </d:or>
                    <d:gt>
                        <d:prop>
                            <oc:size/>
                        </d:prop>
                        <d:literal>10000000</d:literal>
                    </d:gt>
            </d:and>
        </d:where>
        <d:orderby/>
    </d:basicsearch>
</d:searchrequest>
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