Use the Finder web part to help employees find Forms and Templates right within the page.
Results View:
To use this web part add it to any of your SharePoint sections:
Configuring search
When you first add the Finder to your page you will need to go to web part properties, and give it the URL of one or more source libraries where documents will come from:
The libraries can be on the current site or another site.
Simply copy the URL of the library in the format shown below:
Example URL format: https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/Intranet/Shared%20Documents
If your library has folders, they will show up below the search box like this:
When employee clicks on the folder or uses the search box, the results will be displayed like this:
Group documents by a metadata or a view
Available in Finder version Jan 4, 2025
Not only you can group documents by folder, you can group them by library views:
This means you can create a regular SharePoint view with any filters you desire and use URL of that view as a data source.
Here is a 2-min video showing how you can create a custom view to filter documents based on a defined metadata tag.
Configuring Library Views - Watch Video
Showing files outside folders
By default, the Finder will not show files that are outside of folders.
You can change that, so that if there are files outside a folder, the user can click the button as shown below to see those files:
To turn this option on, go to Finder web part properties → General section → toggle Recognize files outside folders to On like this:
Enabling quick previews on documents
You can make it so users can see a quick preview of the document before deciding to open it.
To enable that, simply toggle setting in the web part properties:
As a result your users will see this when hovering on the document:
Users can close the preview or expand it and view it in the new browser tab.
Styling options
To set the searchbox placeholder text, change the Searchbox Prompt web part property:
You can also choose the font size for your folder tiles in case your folder names have long names and don’t fit into the tile:
The Breadcrumb Text Color changes this text :
And, finally, you can define custom tile colors by adding them to the “color bank”:
NOTE: If you have more folders than color definitions in the “color bank”, the web part will use ORIGAMI pre-defined colors for the rest of the folders.
Adding a link
If you need the Finder to open a link instead of a file, you can create a link inside the document library like this:
Then:
If you do not see the option to Add Link to Document, you need to first do these quick steps on the document library: Disable Document Preview for SharePoint Links
That’s it, the app will recognize this is a link and behave appropriately.
Sort order for folders
Finder sorts folders alphabetically but if you need to change the order, simply prefix each folder name with a number like in this example:
01 - January
02 - February
03 - March
04 - April
05 - May
06 - June
07 - July
08 - August
09 - September
10 - October
11 - November
12 - December
Save Styles as Template
Available in Finder – Version April 26, 2025
You can fully customize the Finder web part — apply your corporate fonts, colors, and styles — and save those settings as a template with just one click.
Go to web part properties under the Save Settings section, and click Save Current Settings as Template.
From now on, any new Finder web part will automatically use your saved style settings as the default.
You can always tweak styles if needed–applying a template will not restrict your options, you simply have a better starting point.
Troubleshooting
Got more than 5,000 documents in your library?
Due to limits in SharePoint Online, if you have more than 5,000 items in your document library you’ll have to split them in separate libraries for the Finder to pick them up.
File names cut off?
If your filename contains a “.” in the name–the filename will be cut off. For example, file name “Test.File.May23.PDF” will show as “Test”. Please avoid using extra “.” as separators in the filename.
Got a 'Forms' folder in your document library?
Forms is a reserved folder name in a SharePoint document library and it’s not displayed in the Finder web part even if you have it showing in your document library. We recommend renaming your ‘Forms’ folder for ex.: ‘Forms Library’ or ‘Forms and Templates’
Have files and folders in the library but only folders show?
The Finder only shows either Folders or Files in one view, not both–this is by design to ensure better presentation to the user.
In other words, all files must be in folders and orphaned files will be hidden.
You can use Recognize files outside folders option to show hidden files.
To enable this, go to Finder web part properties → General section → toggle Recognize files outside folders to On like this: