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Can Windows 11 index the contents of image and video files?

I've been getting frustrated with how slow Windows search is. I recently learned about indexing, and I've added a few directories of mostly image and video files.

I was looking around the advanced settings and noticed you can have the system index Properties Only or Properties and Contents.

I understand the benefit of indexing the contents of file types that have text... but is there a benefit to indexing the contents of image and/or video files? What additional info could the system index?

Hello rmayhem111 and welcome to the Microsoft Community!

Based on your feedback, you would like to know if Windows 11 can index the content of image and video files

Windows 11 can index the content of image and video files

The HTML filter handler (in nlhtml.dll) extracts text and property information from the class "htmlfiles" so that it can be indexed by Windows Search. For a description of the association between IFilter and file type, see "Finding the IFilter DLL for a File" in Registering Filter Handlers.

You can use the META tag feature of HTML documents to convey special handling requests to the HTML IFilter. META tags occur near the beginning of an html file within the HEAD ... /HEAD tags, as illustrated in the following example.

Some HTML META tags are automatically mapped to well known property set and property ID (property identifier (PID)) values so that queries on these properties will search the mapped contents. Some examples are listed in the following table. For a list of system properties that you can use for your file formats, see System-Defined Properties for Custom File Formats.

Expand table

For information on what can be indexed, you can refer to the following links:

System-Defined Properties for Custom File Formats - Win32 apps | Microsoft Learn

It not only mentions what information can be indexed, but also what attributes and fields can be indexed by

I hope this helps you!

Kirito|Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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Last updated April 22, 2025 Views 175 Applies to: