Finding Your Notes: Quick Search vs Full Search
The search box above your notes list does two different things, and knowing which one you're using saves a lot of confusion.
- Quick search — you type, and the list filters as you go. Instant, literal keyword matching.
- Full search — you press Enter, and the whole collection is searched by meaning, on the server.
Same box, two modes. Typing starts quick search; Enter escalates to full search.
Quick search
Quick search filters the notes already loaded in your browser. It looks for your text as a literal substring of the note's content, ignoring upper/lower case — type therapy and you'll match "Therapy Notes" and "physiotherapy" alike.
Because it runs entirely in your browser, it's instant — results narrow with every keystroke, with no round trip to the server.
It covers your 100 most recent notes. Quick search loads notes as it goes and stops at 100. If you have more than that, the list tells you the search was partial and suggests pressing Enter. So a quick search that finds nothing means "not in your 100 most recent notes" — not "nowhere in your account".
Quick search is for when you know roughly what you wrote and you wrote it recently: pulling up this morning's meeting note, or jumping to a note whose title you half-remember.
What quick search does not do
- It doesn't search notes older than your 100 most recent.
- It matches only the note's content — not tags, group names, or comments.
- It matches literal text only. Searching
carwill not find a note about "automobile", and it won't correct typos.
Full search
Press Enter to run a full search. This one goes to the server and covers every note in the space you're in, however old — all of your notes when you're in Personal, or all of the group's notes when you're in a group.
Full search is semantic: it matches on meaning, not just spelling. A search for car repair can surface a note titled "took the Honda to the mechanic", even though not one of those words appears in your query. Results come back ordered by relevance rather than by date.
You can also narrow a full search with the filter controls next to the search box:
- Tags — restrict results to notes carrying particular tags.
- Date range — restrict to notes updated between two dates.
- Starred only — restrict to notes you've starred.
Filters apply on the server across your whole collection, so they work on old notes just as well as recent ones. Changing any filter runs a full search immediately — you don't need to press Enter again.
Full search takes a moment, since it's a real search across everything. Results replace the notes list, and scrolling loads more of them.
To leave full search and go back to browsing, clear the box with the ✕ button, or simply edit your text — typing returns you to quick search.
Which one should I use?
| You want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Jump to a note you wrote recently | Quick search |
| Filter the list as you type | Quick search |
| Find a note by an exact word or phrase you remember | Quick search |
| Search your entire history, however old | Full search |
| Find notes about a topic, without knowing the wording | Full search |
| Narrow by tag, date, or starred | Full search |
The short version: start typing, and press Enter if you don't see what you wanted.
A note on searching within a group
Everything above works the same when you switch to a group. Quick search filters the group's recent notes in your browser; full search searches the group's notes on the server. Switch groups from the space switcher at the top of the page, next to the Mikipage logo.