Search your project and scenes

You can search your project and scenesA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary with the Hierarchy, Project, and Asset Database search providers:

Hierarchy: Search GameObjectsThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info
See in Glossary in the loaded scenes.
Project: Search the project’s assets. This is a faster search than the Asset Database search, and supports more filters. The Project provider includes more information about each asset than the Asset Database provider, such as the asset’s properties.
Asset Database: Search the Asset Database. The Asset Database provider includes some asset states that the Project provider doesn’t, such as the asset’s version controlA system for managing file changes. You can use Unity in conjunction with most common version control tools, including Perforce, Git, Mercurial and PlasticSCM. More info
See in Glossary state.

Note: By default, the Asset Database provider is inactive. To enable it, refer to Activate and deactivate search providers.

Results examples

To demonstrate the differences between the providers, consider the following example: In a scene with a single GameObject named Dry5818, based on a prefabAn asset type that allows you to store a GameObject complete with components and properties. The prefab acts as a template from which you can create new object instances in the scene. More info
See in Glossary of the same name:

Provider	Query example	Results
Hierarchy	`h: Dry5818`	GameObjects in the scene that have `Dry5818` in their name.
Project	`p: Dry5818`	Assets in the Project folder that have `Dry5818` in their name, including LODThe Level Of Detail (LOD) technique is an optimization that reduces the number of triangles that Unity has to render for a GameObject when its distance from the Camera increases. More info See in Glossary files.
Asset Database	`adb: Dry5818`	Assets in the Asset Database with `Dry5818` in their name, including `fbx` and `prefab`, but not including the LOD files, which aren’t saved to the Asset Database.

Filter examples

The Hierarchy, Project, and Asset Database use similar filters, but the details differ. For example, all three can search by component, but the Asset Database can’t search by parameter values.

Provider	Example description	Query
Asset Database	Finds assets with a Sphere ColliderAn invisible shape that is used to handle physical collisions for an object. A collider doesn’t need to be exactly the same shape as the object’s mesh - a rough approximation is often more efficient and indistinguishable in gameplay. More info See in Glossary component, such as presets for that component, but can’t filter on parameter values within that component.	`adb: t:SphereCollider`
Project	Finds assets with a Sphere Collider component, such as presets for that component, and can focus the search on Sphere Colliders with a radius greater than 0 in assets, such as presets for that component.	`p: t:SphereCollider` `p: spherecollider.radius>0`
Hierarchy	Finds GameObjects in the loaded scenes that have a Sphere Collider component, and can focus the search on GameObjects in loaded scene with a Sphere Colliders component with a radius greater than 0.	`h: t:SphereCollider` `h: #SphereCollider.m_Radius>0`

For all filters, refer to:

Deep dive: Hierarchy and Project search providers

The Hierarchy and Project search providers are often used together to quickly add project assets to GameObjects in the scene. Because of this, it’s important to understand how the providers’ filters complement each other:

The Hierarchy window handles only GameObjects, therefore the Hierarchy search provider doesn’t have a Type filter. It has a Components filters and a Properties filter. The Properties filter is always in the context of a component, but you can search for components without limiting them by a specific property. If you select a component in the Hierarchy search provider, the Properties filter shows only properties possible for that component.
The Project search has a Types filter and a Properties filter. It doesn’t explicitly have a Components filter, but properties are always in the context of a component.
Assets can have properties that GameObjects don’t have, such as import properties.

Drill-down examples

The types, components, and properties filters allow you to drill down based on what you know about the asset or GameObject you’re looking for.

For example:

To find all material assets in the project, both used and unused, use the Project’s Type filter:
- p: t:Material
- p: t:Material marble (narrow the search by the name marble)
To find all assets or GameObjects that include a specific component, use the Project or Hierarchy Component filter:
- p: t:BoxCollider
- h: t:BoxCollider
To find an asset or GameObject that don’t have an assigned material for their PhysicsMaterial property, use the Project or Hierarchy Properties filter:
- p: boxcollider.material=none
- h: boxcollider.material=none
To find all assets or GameObjects that use a specific material for a specific component, use the Project or Hierarchy Properties filter. For example, to filter for the BoxCollider components that use the PhysicsMaterial NewPhysicsMaterial:
- p: boxcollider.material=NewPhysicsMaterial
- h: #BoxCollider.m_Material=NewPhysicsMaterial
To find a GameObject in the scene that uses a material, but not limited to the scope of a single component, use:
- The Hierarchy’s Custom Scene filter for material:
  
  h: material:NewPhysicsMaterial
- The Project’s References filter with a path and file name:
  
  p: ref=path/to/my/material.mat
To find all GameObjects that are missing a reference to a script, use the Hierarchy’s Missing filters:

h: missing:Any
To find assets or GameObjects using specific references, use the Project or Hierarchy References filter:

p: ref="New Auto Tile"

Additional resources

Search provider references

Search GameObjects with the Hierarchy search provider