[Objective] To address issues of experience dependence, low efficiency, and possible omission of feasible solutions in motor winding layout design under complex slot-pole combinations, multiphase configurations, and different winding forms, a search-and-pruning-based automatic winding layout method is proposed. The method provides an automated solution framework for the unified generation and screening of concentrated windings, distributed windings, and multiphase windings. [Methods] The winding layout problem was formulated as a constrained coil-side combination search problem. A backtracking-based depth-first search framework was constructed to generate candidate winding layouts through coil-side pairing. Bit-mask representation was used to record slot occupancy, enabling fast conflict detection and feasibility checking. The synthesized fundamental and harmonic phasors were updated through incremental complex summation, which eliminated redundant full-range summation calculations. To narrow down the actual search space, symmetry reduction, a triangle-inequality reachability upper bound, and a projection upper bound along the current synthesized phasor direction were adopted to prune invalid branches that fail to satisfy the target winding factor. [Results] Representative three-phase and five-phase case studies showed that the proposed method can automatically generate feasible winding layout schemes with high fundamental winding factors under different slot-pole combinations. Compared with combinational enumeration method, the proposed method significantly reduced the number of visited search nodes and computation time, with pruning rates exceeding 95% in typical cases. Finite element simulation of a 40-slot 26-pole five-phase permanent magnet synchronous motor showed that the average torque of the winding layout obtained by the proposed method was 14.570 N·m, slightly higher than the 14.547 N·m obtained by the star diagram method. Its torque ripple of 0.067 4% was lower than 0.075 6% obtained by the star diagram method, and the total harmonic distortion of the air-gap flux density waveform reached 9.95%, also lower than the 11.18% given by the star diagram method. [Conclusion] The proposed method effectively reduces the practical search space while ensuring the completeness of feasible solution exploration, thereby yielding winding configurations with a high fundamental winding factor and low low-order harmonic content. It is applicable to rapid design and scheme comparison for complex slot-pole combinations, multiphase configurations and diverse winding forms, providing a reliable front-end design tool for subsequent electromagnetic optimization, harmonic suppression, and torque ripple mitigation.