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Mastering Powerful Search Operators and Filters on GitHub

This article explains how to use search operators to make GitHub searches more efficient. It introduces practical techniques such as AND, OR, exclusion, exact match search methods, and filtering by star count.

Shou Arisaka
2 min read
Oct 21, 2025

To efficiently search for repositories and code on GitHub, using search operators is essential. This article introduces basic usage and application examples of GitHub search operators, including filtering by star count and fork count.

Basic Search Operators

Default Behavior
When you specify multiple keywords, results that include all keywords are displayed.

Example: react redux
Searches for repositories containing both react and redux.

Search for results containing any keyword
Use the OR operator to search for repositories containing any of the keywords.

Example: react OR angular
Searches for repositories containing either react or angular.

Exclude specific keywords
You can exclude specific keywords using the NOT or - operator.

Example: react -redux
Searches for repositories that contain react but not redux.

Search for results containing a specific phrase
Search for an exact match by enclosing a phrase in double quotation marks.

Example: "full-stack developer"
Searches for repositories containing the phrase full-stack developer.

Star Count and Other Filtering

Filtering by Star Count

You can filter by repository star count.

  • Specific star count
    Example: stars:50
    Searches for repositories with exactly 50 stars.

  • Range specification
    Example: stars:>=50
    Searches for repositories with 50 or more stars.

stars:50 language:shell
https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A50+language%3Ashell&type=Repositories

Filtering by Creation Date or Update Date

You can also narrow down searches by repository creation date or last update date.

  • Creation date
    Example: created:>=2017-01-01
    Searches for repositories created on or after January 1, 2017.

  • Last update date
    Example: pushed:>=2023-01-01
    Searches for repositories updated on or after January 1, 2023.

stars:20..2000 language:Shell created:>=2017 pushed:>=2017
https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A20..2000+language%3AShell+created%3A%3E%3D2017+pushed%3A%3E%3D2017&type=Repositories

Notes

  • The pushed operator cannot be used for gists.

Advanced search is also available for detailed searches via GUI. Here you can set detailed conditions and perform searches.

Advanced search example

References

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Shou Arisaka Oct 21, 2025

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