Systems and methods for managing data are provided. Data such as metadata from files created by several different software applications are captured, and the captured metadata is searched. The type of information in metadata for one type of file differs from the type of information in metadata for another type of file. A single search input is received and the search is performed through the metadata and content of the plurality of files and subset of the plurality of files stored on a user's data processing system. The search input is saved in a folder for performing future searches.