From https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/30214: > The **Group** and **Project** filters in the [search page](https://gitlab.com/search) should be able to search/show all of the instance's groups and projects. Currently, the filter dropdowns only return groups or projects that the user is a member of. If the user wants to search within a group or project that they are not a member of, that is currently impossible.