In response to characters entered within a Find dialog box, a minifind window is dynamically updated to provide corresponding search strategies and quick matches from content search data that are being searched. The search strategies and quick matches that are listed are dynamically updated as the user inputs additional characters in the Find dialog box. At any time, the user can initiate a full text search to populate a search results pane, based upon the characters input, by selecting a Go control or pressing the Enter key. Alternatively, the user can select one of the quick matches or search strategies, to populate the search results pane with corresponding items obtained from the content search data, which are most likely to relate to the information desired by the user. This approach is applicable to finding information in almost any data accessed locally, or over a network.