The connection tree

The Open connections panel on the left of the main window shows every connection you have opened as a tree. It is where you see what a server holds and where most actions start: double-click to open, right-click for everything else.

Browse a server

1. Open a connection from the Connection Manager (Connect, Ctrl+N; see Your first connection). Its node appears at the end of the tree, listing its databases.
2. Expand a database. It shows four folders, always present even when empty: Collections, Views, GridFS Buckets and System, each with its count in brackets.
3. Expand a collection to see its Indexes folder.
4. Double-click a collection, or select it and press Enter, to open it in a collection tab. Double-clicking a view opens a view tab; double-clicking a GridFS bucket opens its GridFS view.

Children are listed only when you first expand a node, and long lists load progressively, so the tree stays responsive on servers with thousands of databases or collections. While a listing is on its way the node shows Loading….

If a collection already has a tab, opening it again brings that tab to the front instead of opening a second one. Use Duplicate Tab (see Tabs and windows) when you really want two.

Read the tooltips

Hover a node for about a second:

Collection statistics come from the server’s metadata and are fetched once, then cached until you click Refresh: hovering never scans a collection.

Search the tree

1. Click Search open connections at the top of the panel, or press Ctrl+F while the tree has the focus.
2. Type part of a name. The tree keeps only matching nodes and their parents, expanded, with the match highlighted.
3. Press Enter or F3 for the next match, Shift+Enter or Shift+F3 for the previous one. Press Down to move into the tree.
4. Press Esc or clear the field to get the full tree back as it was.

The aA button next to the field toggles Match case. The search covers only what is already listed (it never queries the server while you type). It shows the first 1,000 matches; click More matches… for more. When nothing matches, the tree says No match in the listed nodes.

Search values and field names

Search in… (right-click a connection, a database or a collection, or File > Search in…) looks for text in the documents themselves, not in the tree. It opens a Search In tab whose scope is what you right-clicked; the database and collection selectors widen or narrow it at each run.

1. Type the term and click Search (or press Enter).
2. Choose what to match: Field value and name (the default), Field value or Field name. Tick Match case for an exact case, RegEx for a regular expression. Numbers, dates and ObjectIds are matched on the text the Table View shows for them; embedded documents and arrays are searched to any depth.
3. The search runs in the background, collection after collection, and the table fills as matches come in. Each row shows the database, the collection, the document _id, the field path (for example reviews.19.comments) and the value. Cancel it from the Operations panel; the matches found so far stay.

Advanced Options (the chevron left of the search field) restricts which documents are read in each collection: a query, a projection, a sort, a skip and a limit, typed as in the query bar and checked before the search runs.

A search keeps at most 10,000 matches by default. A collection the server refuses to read is reported and skipped; the others are still searched.

Right-click a result: View Document shows the whole document (read-only), and Open in Collection Tab opens a new Collection Tab whose query selects only that document, where you can edit it.

Use the context menus

Right-click any node. Each kind of node has its own menu; the most common entries are:

Every node also offers Refresh Selected Item, Refresh All, Disconnect, Disconnect Others and Disconnect All, and most offer Choose Color. Paste entries (Paste Collections, Paste Collection, Paste Index) appear only when you have copied something to paste.

Entries that are not available for that node, that server version or your permissions are shown greyed out.

Shortcuts in the tree

Use Ctrl-click and Shift-click to select several nodes. Refresh, Disconnect and Copy Name then act on all of them.

Colours, aliases and notes

• Choose Color gives a connection a colour (Default, Red, Green, Blue, Gold, Purple, or Custom Color…), so you can tell production from test at a glance.
• Aliases / Notes on a database, collection, view or bucket lets you Add Alias, Add Note, edit, copy or remove them. The alias is shown in the tree next to the real name; both appear in the collection’s tooltip. Aliases and notes are stored by Oxys DB Studio on your machine; they never change anything on the server.

Destructive actions ask first

Drop Database, Drop Collection, Clear Collection, Drop View, Drop Bucket and Drop Index open a confirmation naming what will be removed and on which server. Some ask you to type the name before the confirm button is enabled. Cancel writes nothing. On a read-only connection these actions are refused.

Pasting collections onto an existing collection appends and, by default, skips documents whose _id already exists: existing documents are only overwritten if you explicitly choose to overwrite them.

The tree follows your tabs

When you switch tabs, the tree selects and reveals that tab’s collection. Turn this off with Track active tab path in connection tree in Preferences > General.

Troubleshooting