How to Search by File Type in Google Drive

If you have been using Google Drive for years, your cloud storage is likely filled with thousands of disorganized files spread across dozens of vaguely named folders. When you desperately need to find a specific tax document or signed contract, typing a generic keyword into the search bar will often yield hundreds of irrelevant Google Docs and Sheets. To quickly filter out the noise and find exactly what you are looking for, you can use Google Drive’s advanced search operators to filter your results exclusively by file type, such as PDF documents.

How to Search by File Type Using the Search Options Menu

The easiest way to filter your search results is by using the visual search options menu built directly into the search bar.

1. Open Google Drive in your desktop web browser.
2. Locate the large search bar at the very top of the screen.
3. Click on the Search options icon located on the far right side of the search bar (it looks like three horizontal slider switches).
4. A complex drop-down menu will appear. Look for the very first field labeled Type.
5. Click the “Any” drop-down menu next to Type and select PDFs from the list.
6. (Optional) If you know the name of the file, you can type it into the Item name field to narrow the search further.
7. Click the blue Search button at the bottom of the menu.

Google Drive will now display a clean, filtered list showing only the PDF files stored in your account, completely ignoring any Google Docs, Sheets, or image files that might share a similar name.

How to Search by File Type Using Search Operators

If you are a power user who prefers to keep your hands on the keyboard, you can achieve the exact same result much faster by using a direct search operator. Google Drive recognizes a specialized syntax called type:.

1. Click directly into the main Google Drive search bar.
2. To search your entire account for every single PDF, simply type:

   type:pdf

3. Press the Enter key.

You can combine this operator with standard text queries. For example, if you are looking for a contract you signed in 2023, and you know the file was saved as a PDF, you can type:

contract 2023 type:pdf

This command instructs Google Drive to search for the words “contract” and “2023”, but rigidly restrict the results to only show files ending in the .pdf extension.