DockDuck Documentation
Smart Folders
Save a search — its query, scope, and filters — as a Smart Folder in the sidebar. It isn't a snapshot: it re-runs live every time you open it, so the contents are always current.
What it is. A Smart Folder is a saved search. It remembers the search text, the folder it ran in, and any filters you set, and it re-runs that search live every time you open it. When to use it. Reach for one whenever you find yourself running the same search over and over — “PDFs added this week,” “everything tagged Red,” “files over 1 GB in Downloads.”
A Smart Folder is not a copy of your files and not a frozen snapshot of results. It’s a query that runs fresh on open, so newly matching files appear and no-longer-matching ones drop out automatically.
Saving a search
You save a Smart Folder from the search options, after you’ve set up a search you like.
Run a search and open the search options.
Adjust the scope and filters — tags, kind, date — until the results are what you want.
Click Save in the search options header.
Give the Smart Folder a name and confirm. It appears immediately in the sidebar.
The Save button is enabled once your search has some query text. The saved folder keeps the scope you searched in: a search started from the Start Page is saved as machine-wide, while a search inside a folder is saved scoped to that folder.
Where they appear
Saved searches live in a Smart Folders section in the sidebar. The section only shows up once you’ve saved at least one. Click a Smart Folder to run it and see the current matches as a normal listing you can sort, preview, and open.
public/docs/img/smart-folders-1.pngBehind the scenes each Smart Folder has its own virtual address using the
dockduck-smart:// scheme, which is how DockDuck tells a saved search apart from
a real folder or a remote server. You don’t need to type these — clicking the
sidebar row is all it takes — but it’s why opening one re-runs the query instead
of listing a directory.
Editing and removing
To remove a Smart Folder, right-click its row in the sidebar and choose Delete Smart Folder. This only deletes the saved search — your files are never touched.
To change a saved search’s query or filters, run the search the way you want it and save it again under a new name, then delete the old one. Deleting a Smart Folder is always safe: it removes the shortcut, not any files it was finding.
Where to go next
- Search — build the search you’ll save.
- Color tags — tag files, then save a tag-filtered search.
- Pinning — pin frequently used locations to the Start Page.