Search

In most applications, search is somewhere you go. Here it is where you already are.

Searching is the interface

There is no search mode to enter and no find dialog to dismiss. The field at the top of the window is always the search field, and it filters as you type:

• Matching runs across the full content of every note, not only titles.
• Results update on every keystroke, not when you press Return.
• If what you have typed matches the beginning of an existing note’s title, that note is selected for you, so returning to a note you use often takes three or four characters.

Press Return⏎ to start editing whatever is selected. Press

EscapeEsc to clear the search and see everything again.

Finding text inside a note

Once you are editing, the same search text is still live:

• Command G⌘G jumps to the next occurrence of the search text within the note.
• Command Shift G⌘⇧G jumps to the previous one.
• Command D⌘D de-selects the note and puts your search text back in the field, which is the quickest way to widen a search you narrowed too far.

One fact per note

The application is at its best when notes are small. Notational Velocity’s own advice holds: keep to roughly one detail, fact, or item per note, and let there be thousands of them.

This feels wrong if you are used to long documents, and it is the single biggest thing that makes or breaks the experience. The reasoning is simple — search is so fast that finding a note costs nothing, while finding the right paragraph inside a long note costs you a read-through. Small notes turn recall into a few keystrokes.

Tags and search

Tags are searchable alongside content, so they behave less like folders and more like extra words attached to a note. Tag with Command Shift T⌘⇧T, then find those notes by typing the tag. See Organization for how this fits together.