How to Setup The Project Browser in Revit

The Revit Project Browser is a tool that allows you to navigate through all views, sheets, groups, families, and other parts of your Revit project. It shows you a logical hierarchy for all project elements, and displays sub-elements as you expand and collapse each branch.

Note: If Revit’s project browser is missing, go to the View tab > Windows panel > drop-down User Interface menu > Tick Project Browser.

Update: The Project Browser layout was updated in April 2023. Learn more about Revit 2024

In this blog post, we will show you how to use and customize the Project Browser.

Project Browser

Details: Set up the Project Browser window.

Steps

1. Click and drag the browser title bar to one side until you see an outline for placement.
2. Release the left mouse button to dock the browser.

Right-click Views (all) to set up the list.

1. Browser Organization: Optimize views, sheets, and schedules with a custom format.
2. Search: Find particular views, sheets, schedules, or families by name.

✨ Tip: If the project browser is frozen, try to activate a different view order setting within the Browser Organization window.

Browser Organization

Details: Organize, group and filter the list of browsers.

Steps

1. Go to the View tab > Window panel > drop-down User Interface menu.
2. Click Browser Organization.
3. Click New.
4. Assign a name, then click OK.

✨ Tip: Focus on work at hand by filtering out “views on sheets”.

For an advanced control over browser list, assign a custom parameter to a set of views, then select it when applying filters.

Edit Format

To arrange sheets based on date created:

1. Go to the Sheets tab
2. Activate Issue Date
3. Click OK.

To see how the grouping and sorting works, activate the Issue Date scheme, and then click “Edit”.

To change the format of the project browser:

1. Open the Grouping and Sorting tab.
2. Drop-down the “Group by” menu.
3. Add more rules by activating next “Then by” rule.
4. Click OK.

Search

Details: Find a specific view or family by name.

Steps

1. Type the name of a view, sheet, schedule, or family.
2. Use Next and Previous to find more instances with a matching name.

✨ Tip: Activate Match case to search for exact names.

You can always find a missing project browser in Revit. Optimize it by hiding unused views and reordering the list. Maintain healthy RVT projects by improving workflow practices, then cleaning and compressing files.