Search and tags
Find a note by its text, its tags, the day you wrote it, or the device you wrote it on.
Search is always on screen: it is the field at the top of the note list on desktop, and the app bar itself on a phone. It is hinted Search notes.
Typing filters the note list as you go, and the timeline and map follow the same filter — narrow your search and the map plots only the matches.
Text search
Plain words match the text of your notes. Because a note’s title is just its first line, title matches come along for free. Tags and place names are not matched by plain text — there is dedicated syntax for those below.
The × at the end of the field clears the search.
Filter syntax
You can type filters directly into the search box, mixed with ordinary words:
| Syntax | Matches |
|---|---|
#work or tag:work | Notes tagged “work” |
tag:"Big Project" | Tags whose name has spaces |
#none or tag:none | Notes with no tags at all |
device:laptop | Notes written on a device whose name starts with “laptop” |
device:"Work Laptop" | Device names with spaces |
d:today, date:yesterday | Notes created that day |
d:last-week | Notes created in the last week |
d:2026-04-15 | Notes created on that date |
after:2026-01-01 | Notes created since then |
before:yesterday | Notes created before then |
Recognised filters are removed from the text part, so groceries #home searches
for “groceries” among notes tagged “home”.
The filter drawer
If you would rather click than type, the slider icon in the search field opens Sort and Filter. Everything you choose there is written back into the search box as the syntax above, so the two are never out of step.
- Sort By — Date Created, Date Updated, or Title. Choosing the option that is already active reverses the direction; the arrow shows which way. The default is Date Updated, newest first. Your choice is remembered between launches.
- Date — Today, Yesterday, or Pick Date for a specific day.
- Device — one chip per device you have used.
- Tags — pick as many as you like.
Clear empties every filter; Done closes the drawer.
Compact and preview views
Next to the search field is a view toggle — Preview View shows full cards with a snippet of the note and its place, device, and time; Compact View shows one line per note with tags, a short place name, and a date. Compact is worth having on a long list.
Tags
Tags are hierarchical: a tag can live inside another one, which is how “work” ends up with “work / clients” beneath it.
Where the tag tree lives — on desktop, the Tags button in the left rail toggles a pane beside the note list; on a phone, the tree is in the navigation drawer.
- Tap a tag to filter to it; tap again to clear.
- Drag a tag onto another to make it a child. Dropping it on the Tags header moves it back to the top level.
- The ⋮ menu on each tag offers Rename, Change Color, and Delete. Deleting a tag also deletes its child tags — the confirmation says so — but your notes are not deleted, they just lose the tag.
To tag a note, open it and use Manage Tags in the editor toolbar. You can pick existing tags, type several separated by commas, or create a new one from whatever you have typed. See Notes and the editor.
Tag colours are what make the timeline readable — a note’s dot takes the colour of its first tag.
Searching from an AI assistant
Search in the app is literal text matching. The search offered over MCP and the REST API is different: it matches on meaning, so asking an assistant for “that note about switching hosting providers” can find a note that never uses those words. The two are complementary — use the app for exact strings, an assistant for half-remembered ideas.