docs/content/search-github/searching-on-github/finding-files-on-github.md

title, intro, redirect_from, versions, topics

title	intro	redirect_from	versions	topics
Finding files on GitHub	You can search for a file in a repository using the file finder. To search for a file in multiple repositories on {% data variables.product.product_name %}, use the [`filename` code search qualifier](/search-github/searching-on-github/searching-code#search-by-filename).	/articles/finding-files-on-github /github/searching-for-information-on-github/finding-files-on-github /github/searching-for-information-on-github/searching-on-github/finding-files-on-github	fpt ghes ghae ghec * * * *	GitHub search

{% tip %}

Tips:

• By default, file finder results exclude some directories like build, log, tmp, and vendor. To search for files in these directories, use the filename code search qualifier.{% ifversion file-finder-exclusion-controls %} Alternatively, you can customize which directories are excluded by default using a .gitattributes file.{% endif %}
• You can also open the file finder by pressing t on your keyboard. For more information, see "Keyboard shortcuts."

{% endtip %}

Using the file finder

{% data reusables.repositories.navigate-to-repo %} 2. Above the list of files, click Go to file. 3. In the search field, type the name of the file you'd like to find. 4. In the list of results, click the file you wanted to find.

{% ifversion file-finder-exclusion-controls %}

Customizing excluded files

By default, file finder results do not include files in the following directories if they exist at your repository root:

• .git
• .hg
• .sass-cache
• .svn
• build
• dot_git
• log
• tmp
• vendor

You can override these default exclusions using a .gitattributes file.

To do this, create or update a file called .gitattributes in your repository root, setting the linguist-generated attribute to false for each directory that should be included in file finder results.

For example, the following .gitattributes file would cause files in the build/ directory to be available to the file finder:

build/** linguist-generated=false

Note that this override requires the use of the recursive glob pattern (**). For more information, see "pattern format" in the Git documentation. More complex overrides of subdirectories within excluded-by-default directories are not supported.

{% endif %}

Further reading

• "About searching on GitHub"{% ifversion file-finder-exclusion-controls %}
• "Customizing how changed files appear on GitHub"
• .gitattributes in the Git documentation{% endif %}