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Guide · Publisher files

How to find all your Publisher files

Updated · Rotomal

Microsoft's advice is to search for .pub on your PC, OneDrive and SharePoint. On Windows, type ext:.pub in File Explorer's search box, or list every Publisher file on a drive with PowerShell (Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath C:\ -Filter *.pub -Recurse -File). In SharePoint search, the property filter filetype:pub narrows results to Publisher files. Collect them in one folder, keeping the folder structure, before you convert.

Search your PC with File Explorer

  • Open File Explorer and click This PC, so the search covers every drive.
  • Type ext:.pub in the search box. Windows search accepts Advanced Query Syntax, where ext (or fileext) filters by file extension.
  • Switch to Details view and sort by Date modified; each result shows the folder it sits in.
  • Repeat on old PCs, USB drives and external backup disks.
ext:.pub

List every .pub file with PowerShell

File Explorer search is fastest in locations Windows has indexed and can be slow or incomplete elsewhere. PowerShell reads the folders directly, so it is slower but does not depend on the index. This command lists every .pub file on drive C: and saves the list to your desktop as a spreadsheet:

Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath C:\ -Filter *.pub -Recurse -File -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
  Select-Object FullName, Length, LastWriteTime |
  Export-Csv "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\pub-files.csv" -NoTypeInformation

Change C:\ to D:\ or a network share path to search other locations. -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue skips folders you do not have permission to read instead of stopping.

Search OneDrive

  • Open OneDrive in a browser and type .pub in the search box, as Microsoft suggests.
  • Open each result's folder to see whether more Publisher files sit next to it.
  • Check folders shared with you as well as your own files.

Search SharePoint sites

SharePoint search supports Keyword Query Language property filters. Microsoft's reference shows filetype:docx returning Word documents; the same filter with pub narrows results to Publisher files. If it returns nothing, search for .pub as Microsoft suggests.

filetype:pub

Places Publisher files hide

  • Old office PCs and laptops that were replaced but never wiped.
  • Network drives and NAS boxes, often in a folder named after a volunteer or a year.
  • USB sticks and external backup disks.
  • Email attachments sent to a printer or a newsletter editor.
  • A former employee's or volunteer's OneDrive, if your organization kept it.

Once you have found them

Copy the files into one folder, keeping the original folder structure so names and years still make sense, and keep the PowerShell list as a record. Then convert: with Publisher, Microsoft's script exports them to PDF; without it, Pub Rescue converts the whole folder to PDF and Word, from $9 per archive.

Questions

What file extension do Publisher files use?

.pub. Searching for that extension finds files from every Publisher version.

Why doesn't Windows search find my .pub files?

File Explorer search leans on the Windows index, which may not cover every folder or drive. The PowerShell command above reads the folders directly, so it does not depend on the index.

Do I need Publisher to find the files?

No. File Explorer, PowerShell, OneDrive and SharePoint search all find .pub files by their extension, whether or not Publisher is installed.

Can I search all of OneDrive and SharePoint at once?

Microsoft suggests searching for .pub in each place. In SharePoint search, filetype:pub narrows results to Publisher files across the sites you have access to.

Sources

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