You can search your active portal for content to add to your ArcGIS Pro project. You may need to find a specific item—such as a web map of Australian soils shared by a colleague—or you may look for items of interest with no particular dataset in mind. For example, you may want to see the available public data about zebra mussels.
You can also search your active portal for groups that share content related to topics of interest.
You can search in the catalog view, on the Portal tab of the Catalog pane, or on the browse dialog box. Each offers a slightly different experience. In all cases, you type one or more keywords in the search box and press Enter to get results.
Search results for content can be sorted and filtered to refine the list of items. Search results for groups can be sorted.
With a few minor exceptions (and not considering the user interface), searching for portal items in ArcGIS Pro is the same as searching for items in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise. Content is searched according to the same rules, and the same search tools are available.
Content available from your active portal
To access online content in ArcGIS Pro, you must have an active portal connection.
Active portal
Your active portal is either ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise. It is ArcGIS Online if you are signed in to ArcGIS Pro through an ArcGIS Online organization or an ArcGIS public account. It is ArcGIS Enterprise if you are signed in through an ArcGIS Enterprise organization. Your active portal—along with the content shared to your ArcGIS organization and the groups you belong to—determines the online content available to you.
The sign-in status at the top of the ArcGIS Pro start page, and at the top of the application window in an open project, shows your active portal.
Your active portal is ArcGIS Online if your URL resembles either of these examples:
- https://www.arcgis.com
- https://yourorg.maps.arcgis.com
Your active portal is ArcGIS Enterprise, if your URL resembles this example:
- https://webadaptorhost.domain.com/webadaptorname
Note:
The name of your active portal also appears in your portal item collection.
Portal item collections
Your active portal has six item collections:
- My Content
- My Favorites
- My Groups
- My Organization
- ArcGIS Online
or ArcGIS Enterprise - Living Atlas
These collections are not mutually exclusive. For example, items in My Content also appear in My Organization and ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise (whichever is your active portal). However, you can only search one portal collection at a time.
The items included in each portal collection, and the relationships of the collections to each other, are described in Access portal items and groups.
Search for portal content and groups
In the catalog view, or on the Portal tab of the Catalog pane, or on the browse dialog box, you select the portal collection you want to search and choose whether to search for content (items such as web maps and web layers) or groups.
You can search for content in any of the six portal collections. You can search for groups in My Groups, My Organization, and either ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise. A search for groups can also be an indirect search for content because double-clicking a group in a list of search results shows the items shared to the group.
Note:
If you search a portal collection in which groups do not exist, the Content and Groups search options do not appear.
If a search returns more items than can be displayed in the view, pane, or dialog box, a Find more items link appears at the bottom of the list of items.
Items and groups are indexed on information contained in their item page; the index is used to produce search results. The index includes information such as the item’s tags, title, summary, and description.
Typically, content searches do not return items that are not usable in ArcGIS Pro or that can’t be added to a project. For example, searches don’t return Microsoft Word documents or PowerPoint presentations. Some items may be returned with a generic Online item icon 
. This icon indicates item types that are recognized but not usable in ArcGIS Pro, such as StoryMaps, Dashboards, or web mapping applications.
Note:
By default, the My Content collection displays folders—if you have created them—but does not display the items in those folders. To see items in folders, click the Show/Hide Folders button 
in the row of tools next to the search box. This button does not appear if any portal collection other than My Content is selected.
Search by keyword
To search for items, select a portal collection in the catalog view, Catalog pane, or browse dialog box, and enter a keyword in the search box. For example, enter the word condor to look for items related to condors. Add more keywords to narrow the search. For example, a search for condor nest returns only items where both keywords are indexed.
Keywords are not case sensitive. A search for CONDOR returns the same items as a search for condor. Keyword order does not affect search results. A search for condor nest returns the same items as a search for nest condor.
Keywords in the search box are cleared automatically if you change the portal collection.
To use advanced search capabilities such as item field names, group field names, ranges, and Boolean operators, see Use advanced search in the ArcGIS Online help (or see the corresponding topic in the ArcGIS Enterprise help).
Sort results
When you select a portal collection—prior to a search—a list of items in the collection is presented. This list is sorted by default in the order of most recent modification date, except the Living Atlas collection, which is sorted by relevance. (The ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise portal collections do not display a list of items prior to a search.)
After a search, results for all portal collections are sorted in the order of most recent modification date. You can change this order using any of the options below. All sort orders are reversible, except relevance.
- Relevance
- Date Modified
- Title
- Owner
To change the sort order, click the Sort button 
next to the search box and choose an option from the drop-down list.
If you search in the catalog view, you can also click a column heading, such as Title, to sort search results. You can click the heading a second time to reverse the sort order. (Clicking the Type column heading has no effect; portal items cannot be sorted by item type.
Note:
A sort on relevance considers many factors, such as the presence of a search keyword in the item's tags, the frequency of a keyword's appearance in item information fields (title, summary, and description), the completeness of the item information, and the item's view count.
Filter results
You can refine a list of search results by applying filters. Seven filter types are available; however, not all types are available for each portal collection. You can apply multiple filter types to a search. For example, you can filter a list of results by both creation date and item type.
To apply a filter, click the Filter button 
next to the search box and choose an option from the drop-down list. To clear a filter, click Clear next to the option.
Each filter type has options. The options within a filter type are mutually exclusive. For example, if you filter by item type, you can choose maps or layers, but not both. Tags are an exception. If you filter on multiple tags, the item must have all the specified tags to meet the filter condition.
Active filters are displayed as text in the catalog view, Catalog pane, and browse dialog box insofar as space permits. Any filters that aren't shown as text can be viewed in a drop-down list.
You can interactively change your search results by applying more filters, choosing different filter options, and clearing filters. All filters are cleared automatically if you change the portal collection.
Tip:
Filters can be applied before or after a search. If you apply a filter before a search, only items that meet the filter condition are returned by the search.
The following table describes filter types and the portal collections with which they can be used.
Search filters and portal collections
| Filter | My Content | My Favorites | My Groups | My Organization | ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise | Living Atlas |
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Categories Categories are content classifications used by Living Atlas. Custom categories can be created for ArcGIS organizations and groups. |
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Item Type Item type is a predefined classification based on the item's primary use. |
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Date Modified The date the item or its item page was last modified by the owner |
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Date Created The date the item was created |
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Sharing Sharing is an item property that specifies which users have access to the item. |
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Status Status is an item property that identifies authoritative and deprecated items. |
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Tags Tags are words or phrases associated with an item for search purposes. |
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Note:
For ArcGIS Enterprise versions 10.4.1 and 10.5.1, sorting and filtering of search results is not supported. For ArcGIS Enterprise versions 10.6 and 10.6.1, filtering by custom date ranges is not supported.
Manage search results
You can manage search results in the search box.
- To clear a search, click the Delete button
in the search box. - To repeat a recent search, click the search box drop-down arrow and click one of the listed searches.
- To clear the search history, click the search box drop-down arrow and click Clear History.
Differences in search experiences
The catalog view, Catalog pane, and browse dialog box provide similar, but not identical, search experiences.
- The Item Type filter is not available in the browse dialog box.
- The catalog view specifies the number of search results returned. The Catalog pane and browse dialog box do not.