How to modify Find Files GUI file size threshold

In the "Find Files" GUI there is a "Skip files over" field that sets an upper limit on the file size to include in the search. For me, it seems to be perpetually greyed out, and therefore cannot be modified. How do I enable modification of this setting?

Answer 1

[Matt J]

After consulting Tech Support, I have learned that the field will re-enable if non-empty text is entered into the "Find Files containing text" field. Even if this field is not relevant to your search, a temporary, dummy entry can be made just for the purpose of modifying the "Skip files" threshold.

[dpb]

Who wouda' thunk!!?? I'll remove the incorrect answer and did tell the 'bot it was in error.

[Matt J]

Just as a further note, Tech Support has classified this as a bug. However, since the "Skip over files" setting was removed in R2025, it is considered resolved.

[Paul]

Did Tech Support indicate why the "Skip files over" setting was removed from R2025?

[Matt J]

They identified it as a rarely used setting.

[dpb]

But looks like one that could have significant ramifactions on user if actually doing a text search and there were a number of large files in the search path.

[Paul]

"They identified it as a rarely used setting."

Hmm. I'm kinda curious how Mathworks came to that conclusion.

[Matt J]

Hmm. I'm kinda curious how Mathworks came to that conclusion.

From their User Experience telemetry, I would assume.

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/485926-how-do-i-stop-matlab-from-sending-my-usage-information-to-the-mathworks?utm_source=chatgpt.com

[dpb]

I'd think it still worth a complaint over losing an enhancement beginning with R2026 even if not a terribly common occurrence.

For going forward other than writing a gui front end, a pretty simple workaround would be to package a utiity grep package with a dir() call to filter the size.

d=dir(requestedFileNamePattern);        % get the list of possible files
d=d([d.bytes]/1024^2<MAXSIZE_MB);       % filter out the big ones
fqn=fullfile({d.folder},{d.name});      % list of fully-qualified names
flist=grep(PATTERN,fqn);                % the list of found files

where <grep would be the FEX submission>. The above barest bones could be greatly expanded with options, but simple in concept to implement other than requiring user time to reinvent a wheel that was mostly already there. I've had it in my Utilities folder for 10+ years and find it invaluable; wasn't even aware of the Find Files GUI until this thread; never a need arose it wasn't able to solve easily.