#kql 12 articles

• "Search finds nothing here" is usually a site missing from the index — not a permissions problemgotchas / searchThree queries tell you whether the site is in the index at all, before you debug a query that was never wrong
• An unparenthesized OR in your KQL query silently escapes the scope filtergotchas / searchKQL AND binds tighter than OR; wrapping the query in parens is necessary but NOT sufficient (text can break out of them), and an empty custom path list must not fall back to the whole tenant
• Duplicate trimming hides exactly the file copies you are searching forgotchas / searchSearch collapses identical content by default, so a copy-finder returns "no copies" exactly when perfect copies exist; trimduplicates=false on duplicate-hunting queries only
• Find externally / anonymously shared content via Searchsnippets / restOversharing / Copilot-readiness audit: ViewableByExternalUsers:1 surfaces files shared out, security-trimmed, one query
• Graph Search returns 0 hits — you passed the user's question as the queryStringgotchas / searchTranslate question→keywords; "what's new" is a listing (* + default date sort, custom sort = 400); per-entity KQL only as documented
• RAG finds nothing that SharePoint Search finds — the reasoning model spent the whole token cap thinkinggotchas / searchGPT-5/o-series count hidden reasoning in max_completion_tokens; a small cap on the query-generator call returns empty text (HTTP 200), and a raw-question fallback ANDs every word in KQL
• Scope SharePoint Search to hundreds or thousands of sites with RefinementFilters — and or() with one value returns nothinggotchas / searchTo restrict any Search query to an explicit list of site collections, POST to /_api/search/postquery with RefinementFilters SPSiteUrl:or(...) (tested with 3,000 URLs); a single value must use equals() because or() with…
• Search ignores unknown managed properties — silentlygotchas / searchA made-up property name returns HTTP 200 with full results; auto-created Choice properties are not queryable; probe with a fake name, map to RefinableString
• Search queries that actually workguidesThe one mandatory header, practical KQL, managed properties (RefinableString*), paging/sorting, and the freshness/trimming traps
• Sensitivity labels in SharePoint Search — the managed property works, but licensing gates itgotchas / searchInformationProtectionLabelId returns a GUID only after AIP-enable + label + crawl; unlicensed tenants can't even create a label (InvalidLicenseException)
• SharePoint Search finds nothing for a question in an inflected language — add prefix-wildcard stems, and never turn zero hits into "latest documents"gotchas / searchKQL is implicit AND and matches exact word forms, so Czech inflected forms miss; add a stem* variant in code, relax before giving up, and never serve a date-sorted inventory as sources for a specific question
• Two KQL restrictions on the same property separated by a space are OR-ed — a range needs ANDgotchas / searchKQL joins restrictions on the SAME managed property with OR when only a space separates them, so a size or date range written as two restrictions matches every item; write ranges with explicit AND or a..b