Media search: What fields does it searches by

Resolved axgalache2
(@axgalache2)

3 years, 4 months ago
Hello there,
When creating a post, you can add attachment or featured photo to the post.
When selecting a photo from existing media library, there is a search box:
https://i.imgur.com/BiSFayw.png
I would like to know which fields does this input searches by. As far as I investigated, it searches photos by title and/or description. Is this correct? Does it filter photos/attachments by other fields?

Thank you in advance 🙂
- This topic was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by axgalache2. Reason: typo in title

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

Benedikt Ledl
(@benniledl)

3 years, 4 months ago
Hello,

this is the function that queries the search for the media, it seems to search for

https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_ajax_query_attachments/

It takes all these things and searches for your query in there, some things in there are probably not interesting to you but I think the labels are what you are looking for:
```
stdClass Object ( 
[hierarchical] => 
[update_count_callback] =>  
[rewrite] => 
[query_var] => 
[public] => 
[show_ui] => 
[show_tagcloud] => 
[_builtin] => 
[labels] => stdClass Object ( 
	[name] =>  
	[singular_name] =>
	[search_items] => 
	[popular_items] => 
	[all_items] => 
	[parent_item] => 
	[parent_item_colon] =>  
	[edit_item] => 
	[view_item] =>  
	[update_item] => 
	[add_new_item] => 
	[new_item_name] => 
	[separate_items_with_commas] => 
	[add_or_remove_items] => 
	[choose_from_most_used] => 
	[menu_name] =>  
	[name_admin_bar] =>  ) 
[show_in_nav_menus] => 
[cap] => stdClass Object ( 
	[manage_terms] =>  
	[edit_terms] =>  
	[delete_terms] =>  
	[assign_terms] =>  ) 
[name] =>  
[object_type] => Array () 
[label]  )
```
- This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Benedikt Ledl.
Moderator bcworkz
(@bcworkz)

3 years, 4 months ago
The relevant WHERE clause from searching for media items with “test” looks like this:
```
(((wp_posts.post_title LIKE '%test%')
OR (wp_posts.post_excerpt LIKE '%test%')
OR (wp_posts.post_content LIKE '%test%')
OR (sq1.meta_value LIKE '%test%')))
```
If the search term is not in one of those items, the media item will not be found. Note that sq1.meta_value could possibly cover a lot of information.
susisheridan
(@susisheridan)

3 years, 1 month ago

So if I understand this correctly, the search function in the Media Library does not search any of the document/image fields like alt text, caption or description?

Thread Starter axgalache2
(@axgalache2)

3 years, 1 month ago

The field ‘post_content’ noted in the comment above yours corresponds to the ‘description’ field of the document/image, and ‘post_excerpt’ corresponds to caption field