The Project window

The Project window displays all of the files related to your Project and is the main way you can navigate and find Assets and other Project files in your application. When you start a new Project by default this window is open. However, if you cannot find it, or it is closed, you can open it via Window > General > Project or use the keyboard command Ctrl + 9 (Command + 9 on macOS).

You can move the Project window by clicking dragging the top of the window. You can either dock it into place in the Editor, or drag it out of the Editor window to use it as a free-floating window. You can also change the layout of the window itself. To do this, select the context button in the top right of the window and choose from either One Column Layout or Two Column Layout. The Two Column Layout has an extra pane which shows a visual preview of each file.

The left panel of the browser shows the folder structure of the Project as a hierarchical list. When you select a folder from the list, Unity shows its contents in the pane to the right. You can click the small triangle to expand or collapse the folder, displaying any nested folders it contains. Hold down Alt while you click to expand or collapse any nested folders recursively.

Individual Assets are shown in the right hand panel as icons that indicate their type (for example, script, material, sub-folder). To resize the icons, use the slider at the bottom of the panel; they will be replaced by a hierarchical list view if the slider is moved to the extreme left. The space to the left of the slider shows the currently selected item, including a full path to the item if a search is being performed.

Above the Project structure list is a Favorites section where you can keep frequently-used items for easy access. You can drag items from the Project structure list to the Favorites and also save search queries there.

Project window toolbar

Along the top edge of the window is the browser’s toolbarA row of buttons and basic controls at the top of the Unity Editor that allows you to interact with the Editor in various ways (e.g. scaling, translation). More info
See in Glossary.

Search filters

Search filters work by adding an extra term in the search text. A term beginning with “t:” filters by the specified asset type, while “l:” filters by label. You can type these terms directly into the search box rather than use the menu if you know what you are looking for. You can search for more than one type or label at once. Adding several types will expand the search to include all specified types (ie, types will be ORed together). Adding multiple labels will narrow the search to items that have any of the specified labels (ie, labels will be ORed together).

Searching the Asset Store

The Project Browser’s search can also be applied to assets available from the Unity Asset StoreA growing library of free and commercial assets created by Unity and members of the community. Offers a wide variety of assets, from textures, models and animations to whole project examples, tutorials and Editor extensions. More info
See in Glossary. If you choose Asset Store from the menu in the breadcrumb bar, all free and paid items from the store that match your query will be displayed. Searching by type and label works the same as for a Unity Project. The search query words will be checked against the asset name first and then the package name, package label and package description in that order (so an item whose name contains the search terms will be ranked higher than one with the same terms in its package description).

If you select an item from the list, its details will be displayed in the inspectorA Unity window that displays information about the currently selected GameObject, asset or project settings, allowing you to inspect and edit the values. More info
See in Glossary along with the option to purchase and/or download it. Some asset types have previews available in this section so you can, for example, rotate a 3D model before buying. The inspector also gives the option of viewing the asset in the usual Asset Store window to see additional details.

Shortcuts

The following keyboard shortcuts are available when the browser view has focus. Note that some of them only work when the view is using the two-column layout (you can switch between the one- and two-column layouts using the panel menu in the very top right corner).