Type and the list filters
Press Ctrl + Shift + Q and start typing. You do not have to click the search box first: whatever you type from anywhere in the window goes into it. The list catches up about a seventh of a second after you stop typing (140 ms), so it does not thrash on every keystroke.
Esc clears the search. Press it again and the window closes. Up and Down move through the results and Enter copies the one you are on. The rest of the keys are on the shortcuts page.
What search looks at
Everything Relic knows about an item is searchable:
- The title and the note you wrote on it.
- Its tags, both the ones you added and the ones Relic worked out. See Tags.
- The text of the item itself.
- The name of a file or an image, and the text inside a document you saved.
- The text Relic read out of a picture, so a screenshot is as searchable as a note.
A word that is close but not exact still finds the item, so a typo or a half-remembered spelling usually works. Relic also understands a few plain words as instructions: a tag name, a kind of item, a date, or a sort order. Those are on the search operators page.
Results come from every device you have signed in. A screenshot you took on your phone a minute ago turns up in the same list as something you copied on this computer an hour ago.
All, Vault, and sorting
The switch under the search box picks what you are searching. All is everything Relic has captured. Vault is only the items you kept on purpose. Searching behaves the same way in both.
The sort button at the right of that row cycles through three orders. Click it again to move to the next one:
- Best
- The closest matches first. This is where it starts.
- Newest
- Strict date order, most recent at the top.
- Oldest
- Strict date order, oldest at the top.
You can also type the order. Put newest, latest or most recent anywhere in the search and Relic sorts by date for that search only. Oldest and earliest do the same the other way. The word is taken out of the words being matched, so latest invoice searches for invoices and sorts them by date.
When nothing matches
When a search comes up empty, Relic says No results for “gate b12” with your words in the quotes, and under it:
Three things are worth trying, in this order:
- Switch the scope back to All. A Vault search only ever looks at items you kept.
- Take out any date chip or tag chip sitting above the list. Each one narrows the results.
- Use fewer words. Relic matches all of your words at once before it tries anything looser.
The ? cheatsheet
The small ? pill at the right of the search box opens a card with the same list, inside the app. It has three parts:
- The search words, from tag:work to date phrases and sort words.
- The keys that work while the window is open, from arrows and Enter to undoing a delete.
- Two mouse moves: drag a row out to another app, drop files in to save them.
It also lists your own global shortcuts, so it stays right if you changed them.
The same search everywhere
The search box on your phone is the same one, with the same words and operators. The web vault at relic.space understands them too, and adds a couple of its own. See the operators page.
One part is different. Searching by what an item is about, rather than by the words in it, needs the models that run on a computer. A phone and the web vault search the words, the tags and the text a computer already read out of your pictures. Search by meaning covers what that means in practice.