Search portal items

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 California fires 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.

Searching for portal items in ArcGIS Pro is similar to searching for items in your ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise organization. Content is searched according to the same rules, and the same search tools are available.

Catalog pane showing search results filtered by item type
A filtered search of ArcGIS Online content is shown in the Catalog pane.

Content available from the active portal

To access online content in ArcGIS Pro, you must have an active portal connection.

Active portal

Your active portal is an ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise site to which you are signed in from ArcGIS Pro. The online content available to you is determined by the items in your portal and their sharing properties. If you are signed in to an ArcGIS Online portal, you also have access to items shared publicly on ArcGIS Online.

The sign-in status at the top of the ArcGIS Pro start page shows your active portal.

Your active portal is an ArcGIS Online portal if your URL resembles either of these examples:

  • https://www.arcgis.com
  • https://yourorg.maps.arcgis.com

Sign-in status on the ArcGIS Pro start page
The sign-in status shows ArcGIS Online as the active portal.

Your active portal is an ArcGIS Enterprise portal if your URL resembles this example:

  • https://webadaptorhost.domain.com/webadaptorname

Portal item collections

Your active portal has six item collections:

  • My Content My Content
  • My Favorites My Favorites
  • My Groups My Groups
  • My Organization My Organization
  • ArcGIS Online ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise ArcGIS Enterprise
  • Living Atlas 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.

Content and Groups buttons shown next to the search box in the catalog view
A search for content in My Organization is shown in the catalog view. Content is the default search option.

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 Online item. This icon indicates item types that are recognized but not usable in ArcGIS Pro, such as ArcGIS 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 Show/Hide Folders in the row of tools next to the search box. This button appears only when the My Content collection 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.

After a search, results are sorted by relevance for all portal collections. You can change the sort 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 Sort next to the search box and choose an option from the drop-down list. Portal items can't be sorted by type or path, although these properties appear on 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 or Path column heading has no effect.)

Catalog view showing drop-down options on the Sort button
Search results are sorted by default according to the most recent modification date.

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 Filter next to the search box and choose an option from the drop-down list. To clear a filter, click Clear next to the option.

Filters can be applied before a search to limit the initial set of search results, or applied after a search to refine the list of results.

Catalog view showing drop-down options on the Filter button and filtered search results
A list of results is filtered to show web maps modified from January 1, 2021, to a specified date. In the catalog view, the active filters are displayed above the search results.

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 if space permits. Any filters that aren't shown as text can be viewed in a drop-down list.

Catalog pane showing text for two active filters and a button with a drop-down arrow indicating a third active filter

You can interactively change your search results by applying more filters, choosing different filter options, and clearing filters. As you explore content within a portal collection, filters stay in place until you explicitly change them. When you switch portal collections, all filters are cleared automatically.

Note:

Portal groups, such as the groups in My Groups, have specific sets of tags. When you browse or search a group's content, any tag filters that you apply are cleared if you start exploring content in another group.

The following table describes filter types and the portal collections with which they can be used.

Search filters and portal collections

FilterMy ContentMy FavoritesMy GroupsMy OrganizationArcGIS Online or ArcGIS EnterpriseLiving Atlas

Categories: Content classifications used by ArcGIS Living Atlas. Custom categories can be created for ArcGIS organizations and groups.

Supported

Supported

Supported

Item type: A predefined classification based on the item's primary use.

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Date Modified: The date the item or its item page was last modified by the owner.

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Date Created: The date the item was created.

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Sharing: An item property that specifies which users have access to the item.

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Status: An item property that identifies authoritative and deprecated items.

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Tags: Words or phrases associated with an item for search purposes.

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

A check mark means a filter can be used with a portal collection.
Note:

For ArcGIS Enterprise 10.4.x and 10.5.x, sorting and filtering of search results is not supported. For ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6.x, 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 Delete 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 on the browse dialog box.
  • The catalog view specifies the number of search results returned. The Catalog pane and browse dialog box do not.

Related topics