Search for negation - Search for negation - Alfresco - Alfresco Search Enterprise - Alfresco/Alfresco-Search-Enterprise/3.2/Alfresco-Search-Enterprise/Alfresco-Search-Enterprise/Using/Search-for-negation - 3.2

Alfresco Search Enterprise
Platform
Alfresco
Product
Alfresco Search Enterprise
Release
3.2
ft:lastPublication
2026-05-06T19:34:57.842000
ft:locale
en-US
ArchiveStatus
Archived

You can narrow your search results by excluding words with the NOT syntax. Single terms, and phrases can be combined using “NOT” in upper, lower, or mixed case, or prefixed with “!” or “-”. These queries search for nodes that contain the terms yellow in any content.

yellow NOT banana
yellow !banana
yellow -banana
NOT yellow banana
-yellow banana
!yellow banana

Note

In the three initial samples above, since OR is the default operator for searching, the results are expected to include every node with "yellow" and every node without the "banana" term. If you want to get nodes with the "yellow" term and without the term "banana", use the following expression: yellow AND NOT banana.

The NOT operator can only be used for string keywords and doesn’t work for numerals or dates.

Prefixing any search qualifier with a - excludes all results that are matched by that qualifier.