How do i retrieve sharepoint items from a specific folder or the entire site that match a specific metadata property

Question

I am working on code(using typescript and the sharepoint REST API) to help people working with me retrieve items from sharepoint. now i want to retrieve the items matching a specific metadata property(like the file's owner or the date it was modified on) that are either in a specific folder or on the entire site

i tried to follow this article: http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/2013/09/23/how-to-filter-on-a-managed-metadata-column-via-rest-in-sharepoint-2013/ however. it requires the items and folders to be in a "list". rather than in a "folder" or the entire site. however i don't know how to see my site's lists and i prefer to retrieve items that are in a specific folder or in the whole site.

here is the REST call i use to retrieve ALL files in a specific folder

url 
= https://yoursitehere.sharepoint.com/_api/Web/GetFolderByServerRelativeUrl('" + ServerRelativeUrl + "')?$expand=Folders,Files/ListItemAllFields

this retrieves everything. not things with matching metadata. what that is in the article fails due to my lack of knowledge about lists

Answer 1

You can use Search REST API for SharePoint. This will return the data from all sites.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/general-development/sharepoint-search-rest-api-overview

There would be some lag in the returned results due crawling.