---
id: KB-TD-010
url: https://app.codecontract.io/help/day-to-day/finding-something-from-years-ago
idioma: en
categoria: trabajo-diario
subcategoria: encontrar
audiencia: usuario
nivel: intermedio
actualizado: 2026-08-13
tambienEn: [es]
relacionados: [KB-ET-006, KB-TD-007, KB-TD-012]
citadoPor: [KB-TD-019]
---

# Finding something from years ago

_When you remember neither the name, nor the date, nor who uploaded it._

**Responde a:** find an old document · i do not remember the filename · find something from three years ago · searching without knowing the date

Something from three years ago is searched for differently from last week's. You do not remember the name, the date is approximate, and whoever uploaded it may have left. What you almost always remember is something it said inside.

## Where to start, in order

1. **An identifier that does not change** — A tax ID, a registration, a policy or case number. It finds fastest.
2. **The other party's name** — The company or person it was with. Better remembered than anything else.
3. **The matter it belonged to** — The site, the client, the project. And from there, inside.
4. **And only last, the date** — As a narrowing filter, not a starting point.

> [!IMPORTANT]
> Searching by date first is the commonest mistake and the biggest time sink. The date you remember is usually off by months, and filtering on it discards exactly what you are looking for without you noticing.

## If it does not appear

| Possible cause | How to rule it out |
| --- | --- |
| You are in another organisation | Check at the top: the silliest and commonest cause |
| You lack permission to see it | Ask an administrator |
| It was a scan uploaded without reading | Search the filename or the matter |
| It was never here | It may be in someone's email from back then |

> [!WARNING]
> The third row misleads most. A scanned document uploaded without reading is not searchable by content: it exists, but it does not answer what you are looking for inside it.

## So it does not happen again

**En corto**

- That what is uploaded gets read, unless there is a reason not to.
- That each document lives in the matter it belongs to, not loose.
- And that what is consulted often is linked from where you work.

> [!NOTE]
> If you find it after twenty minutes, spend two more making it findable: it is the only way the next time does not cost another twenty.

**Can I search by an extracted value?**

Yes, and it is the most precise: amounts, expiry dates, identifiers.

**What if the uploader has left?**

Their history remains; what left is the person, not what they did.

**Can I search old scanned documents?**

If they were read on upload, yes. If not, they can be reprocessed.

## Ejemplos

**Someone searches for a four-year-old contract by date and cannot find it.**

- Searches the other party's tax ID

→ It appears in seconds, with a real date five months off from what they remembered.

**A client asks about a shipment from four years ago and the archive sits in three places.**

- Searches by something in the content rather than by date
- Checks the complete file with its history

→ You answer with what existed then rather than with what is remembered.

**Old scans do not appear in searches.**

- Checks whether they were processed on upload

→ The history becomes searchable.

**The search uses the supplier's name from back then, which has changed.**

- Searches by the document's content

→ The name change stops hiding the archive.

**The document was migrated and lost its context.**

- Checks which file it ended up attached to

→ You reach it from where the question starts.

**Nobody knows whether the document was kept that long.**

- Checks the retention policy applied

→ You know what to expect to find.