You search for videos with the same operators as any Google search. Put site: in front of a video site such as youtube.com, quotes around an exact title, a minus before a word to leave out, and before: or after: to limit the date. Fill in the fields above, open the search in Google, then click the Videos filter under the search bar.
How to build a video search
- Type youtube.com, or any other video site, in the site field. Google limits results to that site or domain.
- Put the exact title or phrase in the quotes field, such as "sourdough starter".
- Add any word you want gone to the minus field, such as discard.
- Set before: or after: if you want older or newer results. Google applies them to when a page was last updated, which isn't always the upload date.
- Open the search in Google. With those three filled in, it reads site:youtube.com "sourdough starter" -discard, with no space after the colon. Google's help says not to leave a space between an operator and the word after it.
Video filters you click in Google
You pick Videos yourself once the search opens in Google. After a search runs, filters show up below the search bar. Click Videos, then pick from the video filters Google offers. Duration narrows results by how long a video is. Time finds videos published recently or on a set date. Quality finds high quality videos. Closed captioned keeps only videos with captions. Source limits results to one source, like YouTube.
You set these filters by clicking in Google. There are no fields for them above. From Google Search Help's pages on refining searches and on filters, read in October 2026.
This google search operators is free with no signup. SearchBlueprint, who make it, sell SEO planning for websites: which searches each page should answer.