The window

Filtering by type

The filter decides what the window in front of you shows. It lists only the kinds of file this scan actually found, and counts each of them.

The file type filter open over the grid, listing Audio 633, Document 292 switched off, Image 1132 unfolded into its individual types, Movie 51 and Text 6090
The filter over a scan of 8 198 files. Document and Text are switched off; Image is unfolded.

Opening it

The button with the three lines in the titlebar opens the filter. The button itself is filled and coloured while at least one type is switched off, so you can always see from the titlebar whether something is being hidden — and the line under the window title says the same in numbers.

What it lists

Only the types this scan found, grouped into images, movies, audio, text and documents, with the number of files of each. A scan that found no sound files has no Audio row.

  • Click a row to hide that kind of file; click it again to bring it back.
  • Switching a group off switches off everything under it. A group where only some of its types are showing is drawn with a dash instead of a tick.
  • The arrow in front of a group name opens the individual types under it — JPEG and PNG separately, rather than images as a whole.
  • All and None at the top switch every row at once.
  • The foot of the popover counts what is listed and what is hidden.

It is not the same as the setting

The difference

This filter changes what you are looking at, out of what the current scan already collected. The File Types pane of the settings changes what the next scan collects at all.

So switching Documents on in the settings does nothing to the window in front of you — that scan never collected any. Scan again and they appear.

Together with the search field

The two narrow the list independently and both apply at once. With movies switched off and holiday in the search field, the window lists the pictures whose name contains holiday. See Searching by name.