Learn how to navigate, search, and sort the vSphere Client inventory.

How to Use Your Global Inventory Lists Navigator

You can use the vSphere Global Inventory Lists navigator to browse and select objects in the vSphere inventory as an alternative to the hierarchical inventory tree.

Unlike the inventory tree, which presents hierarchical arrangements of parent and child objects arranged in the Hosts and Clusters, VMs and Templates, Storage, and Networking inventory lists, the Global Inventory Lists navigator presents a list of all related objects in the inventory. You can navigate from an object to its related objects, regardless of their type.

Procedure

  1. From the vSphere Client home page, click Global Inventory Lists.
  2. In the left pane, select one of the object or resource categories to view objects of that type.
    For example, click Hosts to view the hosts in the vSphere inventory.
  3. In the left navigation pane, click an object from the list once to display information about the object.
  4. (Optional) Click the object again to open it.
    Opening an object brings it to the top of the navigator and displays related object categories beneath it.
    For example, opening a host allows you to see the child resource pools, virtual machines, datastores, networks, and distributed switches associated with this host.
  5. To access additional information or manage the selected object, click one of the tabs in the center pane.
    Option Description
    Summary You can view basic status and configuration for an object.
    Monitor You can view alarms, performance data, resource allocation, events, and other status information for an object.
    Configure Depending on the selected object, you can edit settings, alarm definitions, tags, permissions, and so on.
    Permissions You can view, add, change, and delete permissions. This tab is only available for logged in users with administration privileges.
    Related Objects tabs You can view and manage the objects related to the object that you selected. For example, if you select a host, the tabs that you see are VMs, Resource Pools, Datastores, and Networks.
    Updates Depending on the selected object, you can check the hardware compatibility of a host against the VMware Compatibility Guide, check the status of virtual machines, upgrade the VMware Tools version or the virtual hardware version of the virtual machines, and perform vSphere Lifecycle Manager operations.
    Note: The Updates tab is available only for certain types of inventory objects, for example, hosts, virtual machines, and clusters.

Inventory Keyboard Shortcuts in the vSphere Client

Discover some of the inventory keyboard shortcuts that you can use to quickly navigate to different inventories in the vSphere Client.

Table 1. Inventory Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard Combination on a Windows machine Keyboard Combination on a Mac machine Action
Ctrl+Alt+Home Control+Option+Home Home
Ctrl+Alt+1 Control+Option+1 Shortcuts
Ctrl+Alt+2 Control+Option+2 Hosts and Clusters
Ctrl+Alt+3 Control+Option+3 VMs and Templates
Ctrl+Alt+4 Control+Option+4 Storage
Ctrl+Alt+5 Control+Option+5 Networking
Ctrl+Alt+6 Control+Option+6 Content Libraries
Ctrl+Alt+7 Control+Option+7 Workload Management
Ctrl+Alt+8 Control+Option+8 Global Inventory Lists
Ctrl+Alt+R Control+Option+R Refresh
Ctrl+Alt+S repeat twice Control+Option+S repeat twice Search

How to Sort Your vSphere Client Inventory Objects

You can use sortable columns and input filters to sort and find objects in your vSphere Client inventory that meet certain criteria.

You can sort list views by column. These list views can be selected in the Global Inventory Lists pane or found in search results.

For example, you can sort virtual machines by name, provisioned space, used space, and so on.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client home page, select Global Inventory Lists.
  2. To open an object list view, select an object type from the list.
    If objects from the selected type are not present in the inventory, a blank page appears.
  3. (Optional) Click the column you want to sort objects by. You can click again on that column to reverse the sorting order.
  4. Add or remove columns from the object list view:
    1. Click Manage Columns at the bottom left corner of the object list view.
      The Show Columns pop-up appears.
    2. (Optional) To show a column in the object list view, select the check box for the column from the list.
    3. (Optional) To hide a column from the object list view, deselect the check box for the column from the list.

How to Use Quick Filters to Find Objects in Your vSphere Client Inventory

From a list view, you can use the quick filter field to filter objects by entering specific values.

You can use input filters to sort and find objects in your vSphere Client inventory that meet certain criteria. You can filter inventory objects by name, state, status, and so on.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client home page, select Global Inventory Lists.
  2. To open an object list view, select an object type from the list.
    If objects from the selected type are not present in the inventory, a blank page appears.
  3. Click the drop-down menu in the right upper corner of the inventory object list table, and select Quick Filter.
  4. Enter your filtering parameter in the empty filter field. For example, in the virtual machine list view, to filter for all virtual machines that are in a powered on state, you must enter powered on.
    A list of inventory objects that meet your filtering criteria is displayed in your selected sorting order.

What to do next

To clear the filtered list of inventory objects, delete the filtering parameter from the filter field.

How to Use Advanced Filters to Find Objects in Your vSphere Client Inventory

You can use the advanced filter options to create a set of filtering criteria and find specific objects in your vSphere Client.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client home page, select Global Inventory Lists.
  2. To open an object list view, select an object type from the list.
    If objects from the selected type are not present in the inventory, a blank page appears.
  3. Click the drop-down menu in the right upper corner of the inventory object list table, and select Advanced Filter.
  4. Click Add New.
    A pop-up window appears.
  5. From the drop-down menu under Filter, select the filtering parameter.
  6. Depending on the parameter you select, you must select values from a pre-defined list, or enter data in a filter operator.
    • From the Value list, select all values that you want to apply as filtering criteria.
    • From the filter operator, select how the filtering criteria must relate to each other and enter the filter value.
      Note: If you want to specify the filtering criteria further, you can click Add Condition, and enter the required details for the second filter operator.
  7. Click Apply.
    A list of inventory objects that meet your filtering criteria is displayed in your selected sorting order. The filters that you apply are displayed on top of the inventory list.
    Note: You can apply multiple advanced filters to the inventory list. They are combined with the logical operator and.
  8. (Optional) To edit a filter that you applied, click on the filter displayed on top of the inventory list, edit the filtering criteria, and click Apply.
  9. (Optional) To hide all filters applied to the inventory list, click Hide All.
    The filters continue to be applied.

What to do next

To delete a filter that you applied, click the remove icon ( Times symbol icon.) next to the filtering criterion. If the filter consists of more than one filtering criteria, you should remove each one separately.

To delete all filters applied to the inventory list, click Clear All.

How to Search Your vSphere Client Inventory

With the vSphere Client, you can search the inventory for objects that match specified criteria. You can search the inventories of all vCenter Server systems.

You can only view and search for inventory objects that you have permission to view.

Note: If your permissions change while you are logged in, the search service might not immediately recognize these changes. To ensure that your search is performed with up-to-date permissions, log out of all your open sessions and log in again before you perform the search.

Perform a Quick Search

A quick search checks all types of objects for the specified search term within the name or other properties of the object.

  1. Enter the search term in the search box at the top of the vSphere Client window.

    Multiple search terms in a quick or simple search are treated as if they are connected by ORs. For example, searching for example machine finds all objects with names containing either "example" or "machine".

    The search results appear below the search box as you type. The number of items displayed is limited to 10.

  2. (Optional) To run a saved search, click the saved search icon and select a saved search query.
  3. (Optional) To display an item in the inventory, click the item from the drop-down list of the search results.
  4. (Optional) To see more search results or more details about the search results, click the summary of the search results from the drop-down list of search results.
    1. (Optional) To display an object in the inventory, click the object in the search results page.

    The search results are listed in tables arranged by object type. For example, if a search finds hosts and virtual machines, the following tables appear: Hosts, which shows only host results and Virtual Machines, which shows only virtual machine results.

Save a Search

You can save search queries in the vSphere Client so you can rerun, rename, or delete them later.

  1. In а vSphere Client window, enter a query for a simple search in the search box.
  2. Click the summary of the search results from the drop-down list with search results.
  3. On the search results page, click Save Search.
  4. Enter a name for the search query. Names must be lowercase with no spaces.
  5. Click Save.

    The search query you entered is saved. You can reload the query later and repeat the search.

Manage a Saved Search

In the vSphere Client, you can rename, delete, or create a duplicate of a saved search query.

  1. At the top of the vSphere Client window, click inside the search box.
  2. Click the saved search icon and select a saved search query.
  3. On the Search Results page, click Actions and select one of the options:
    Option Description
    Save as Creates a duplicate of the saved search query.
    Rename Renames the saved search query.
    Delete Deletes the saved search query.
  4. Confirm the changes.

How to Export Your vSphere Inventory Lists

In the vSphere Client, you can export the contents of an inventory list view to a CSV file.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client, click Menu and select Global Inventory Lists.
  2. In the left pane, select one of the object or resource categories to view objects of that type.
    For example, click Hosts to view the hosts in the vSphere inventory.
  3. Select whether you want all columns or your current selection of columns to be listed in the CSV file.
    1. Click Manage Columns at the bottom left corner of the object list view.
      The Show Columns pop-up appears.
    2. (Optional) To show a column in the object list view, select the check box for the column from the list.
    3. (Optional) To hide a column from the object list view, deselect the check box for the column from the list.
    4. (Optional) To show all columns, click SELECT ALL.
  4. Click Export at the bottom left corner of the list view.

Results

The CSV file is generated and available for download.