The Explorer window shows a hierarchical list of every instance inside an experience. At the highest level of the hierarchy are the services; Workspace, for example, is where visible 3D content such as parts are stored.
Parent-Child Hierarchy
Roblox uses the concept of parenting to organize objects. All children of a parent object appear under its branch when expanded.
Expanding and Collapsing Branches
Clicking the arrow next to a parent branch, or pressing → or ← when a parent is selected, expands or collapses only that branch (nested child branches remain in their current state). To expand or collapse all branches within a multi-nested hierarchy, hold Shift when clicking the arrow.
Inserting and Parenting
Insert New Object
Some objects like primitive parts can be inserted from the Model tab, but a full array of objects can be inserted through any of the following methods:
Hover over the object's parent and click the ⊕ button.
Right-click the object's parent and select Insert Object.
Select the object's parent and press CtrlI on Windows or ⌘I on macOS.
Each method opens an insertion window which contains a list of objects, sorted by category. You can quickly locate familiar objects by typing a search query in the input field:
If desired, you can further customize the behavior of the insertion workflow as follows:
Paste From Clipboard
For an object copied to the clipboard, you can paste it as a new child to the Workspace, or into one or more existing parents.
Press CtrlV on Windows or ⌘V on macOS to paste the object into the top-level Workspace.
Right-click specific parent(s) and choose one of the following options from the context menu:
Paste Into Pastes the child geometrically on top of the original. CtrlShiftV (Windows)
⌘ShiftV (macOS)Paste Into at Original Location Pastes the child at the same CFrame it was authored at. If you select multiple objects and right-click, the options above will appear as Paste Into Selected [], and completing the operation will paste the clipboard item(s) into all of the selected parents. This is a convenient way to paste the same child into multiple parents, such as a common Texture into several different Parts.
Changing Parents
To change the parent of one or more children (reparent), simply drag and drop them onto the new parent.
Organizing by Folders
Like directories/folders on a computer, the Folder object is a useful way to organize objects. For instance, if you want to store all environmental sounds in a logical place, you can create a folder and place multiple Sound objects within it.
You can organize objects into folders as follows:
Create a Folder instance through a standard insertion method, then drag and drop existing objects into it.
Select multiple objects, right-click them, and then select Group as a Folder from the context menu or press AltCtrlG on Windows or ⌥⌘G on macOS.
Filtering Instances
Through the Filter Workspace input near the top of the window, You can filter instances by name, property, class/subclass/tag bespoke queries, and ancestry queries. You can also combine parameters for advanced logical filtering.
Name Filter
Typing in a basic string yields name matched instances. For example, filtering by the keyword "script" finds all instances containing it, such as ServerScriptService and StarterPlayerScripts.
A name is a sequence of characters that are alphanumeric, _, -, or .. In all of the following filtering methods, exercise caution when filtering for instances whose names contain spaces, as the filter logic may confuse spaces for a combined filter. When filtering for names with spaces, you should surround the full name with double quotes, for example tag:"Light Source" to filter by the full tag name of Light Source.
Property Filters
You can filter by property equality or value comparisons. Most properties are supported, and the filter works with partial matches, ignores spacing, and is non-case-sensitive.
Property value comparisons are filtered through the operators ~=, >, <, <=, or >=.
Example Filter Result Health > 50 Every Humanoid with more than 50 Health. Transparency ~= 0.5 BaseParts with Transparency not equal to 0.5. Property types such as Vector3 and Color3 support filtering as a complete unit, with the unit surrounded by quotes. This works either for exact equality, or with comparison operators in which every value is compared against the comparator.
Example Filter Result Size > "20, 5, 20" Objects with an X, Y, and Z size greater than 20, 5, 20, respectively. Color = "255, 0, 0" Objects with an RGB color value of exactly [255, 0, 0].
Bespoke Filters
Classes, and subclasses, and tags are filtered through various bespoke queries, including:
- classname:[Class] and c:[Class] both find everything that is of class [Class]. For example, classname:Part finds everything that is a Part.
- tag:[TagName] finds everything with a CollectionService tag of [TagName]. For example, tag:LightSource finds everything that is tagged LightSource. You can add tags in the Tag Editor, and tag names will autocomplete.
Ancestry Filters
You can filter within a specific scope using the . operator, chain operators together for highly specific filters, or use * as a wildcard.
[Parent].[Child] finds named children inside a named parent. For example, workspace.Model finds instances named Model inside instances named workspace, similar to scripting.
Chaining . operators adds specificity. For instance, Animals.Dog.Tail finds objects named Tail inside Dog inside Animals.
* acts as a wildcard, for instance:
Example Filter Result Cart.* All children of an object named Cart. Cart.Barrier.* All children of Barrier, itself a child of Cart. Cart.*.* All grandchildren of Cart, excluding direct children of Cart. Cart.*.Trim All grandchildren of Cart that are named Trim. [Parent].** finds all descendants of a parent. For example, CarModel.** finds all descendants of CarModel.
Combining Parameters
For advanced logical searches, you can combine filters through unions and grouping.
Multiple filters separated by spaces or and operate on all of the conditions.
The or conjunction operates just like the or operator in code. Groups within parentheses, conjoined by or, find everything within multiple combined filters.
Example Filter Result Cat or Dog Everything that has Cat or Dog in its name. (Anchored=true CanCollide=true) or (Anchored=false CanCollide=false) Every BasePart that either is anchored and can collide, or isn't anchored and can't collide.
Selecting Filtered Results
Within a filtered hierarchy, certain key shortcuts and mouse operations behave differently than they do within a non-filtered hierarchy.
Select All
Within a non-filtered hierarchy, pressing CtrlA on Windows or ⌘A on macOS selects all objects. Within a filtered hierarchy, the same shortcut or the "select all" button selects only the filter-matching objects.
Shift-Select
Within a non-filtered hierarchy, clicking an object and then Shift-clicking another object selects everything within the range.
Within a filtered hierarchy, if both the initially clicked object and the Shift-clicked object match the filter query, only filter-matching objects within the range are selected.
Drag Select
Clicking and dragging from the right side of the window initiates a selection box. Within a non-filtered hierarchy, everything within the box is selected.
Within a filtered hierarchy, only filter-matching objects within the selection box are selected.
Additional Key Shortcuts
| Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|
| → | With a collapsed branch selected, expands that branch. When pressed again, selects the first child immediately under the parent node. |
| ← | With any child of a branch selected, moves selection back to the parent node. When pressed again, collapses the entire branch. |
| home | Selects the topmost object in the hierarchy (Workspace). |
| end | Selects the bottommost object in the hierarchy. |
| page up | Selects the object in the hierarchy that's above the topmost visible hierarchy item. |
| page down | Selects the object in the hierarchy that's below the bottommost visible hierarchy item. |