When working in a large corporate Google Workspace environment, your Google Drive can quickly become cluttered with thousands of documents shared by dozens of different colleagues. If you know you are looking for a specific presentation or budget sheet, but you cannot remember the exact file name, the standard search bar might return too many irrelevant results. However, if you can remember exactly who created or sent you the file, you can use Google Drive’s advanced search filters to instantly narrow down the results to only files owned by that specific person.
How to Search by Owner Using the Visual Filter Menu
Google Drive includes a visual advanced search menu that allows you to easily filter files by owner without needing to memorize any special search commands.
- Open Google Drive in your desktop web browser.
- Look at the main search bar at the very top of the screen. Inside the right edge of the search bar, click on the Advanced search options icon (it looks like three horizontal lines with slider switches).
- A dropdown menu will appear with multiple filter options. Look for the field labeled Owner.
- Click the dropdown menu next to “Owner.” By default, it says “Anyone.”
- Select Specific person… from the list.
- A new text box will appear. Type in the name or the email address of the person who owns the file. Google will autocomplete their name from your contacts list.
- (Optional) You can further narrow the search by selecting a specific File Type (e.g., Spreadsheets) from the menu above.
- Click the blue Search button at the bottom of the menu.
Google Drive will now display a clean list of files that match your exact criteria, significantly reducing the visual clutter.
How to Search by Owner Using Search Operators
If you prefer a faster method and do not want to click through menus, you can type advanced search operators directly into the main Google Drive search bar. This is much faster if you already know the person’s email address.
Simply type owner: followed immediately by the person’s exact email address (do not insert a space after the colon).
owner:[email protected]Press Enter, and Drive will instantly filter the view. You can even combine operators. For example, if you know your colleague sent you a PDF, you can search for:
owner:[email protected] type:pdfBy mastering these operators, you can locate lost files in massive shared drives in a matter of seconds.