Finding Items¶

Melanite's search has two entry points with distinct roles. Understanding this makes you much faster.

Entry point	Key	Scope	Trait
Search box	`Cmd`+`F` / `Ctrl`+`F`	File names + note text + memos	Cross-field search; combines with tag filters
Quick Open	`Cmd`+`P` / `Ctrl`+`P`	File names only	Never matches body text; works from a single character

In both, words separated by spaces must all match (details below).

Rule of thumb: Cmd+F to search contents, Cmd+P to jump by name.

Searching for an action? That's Cmd+Shift+P

Both entry points above search for items. When what you're looking for is a feature ("where was that again?"), use the command palette (Cmd+Shift+P / Ctrl+Shift+P). Even actions the menus don't carry, such as the integrity check, can be called by typing their name.

The "Search (file names, note text, memos)" box in the toolbar. Focus it with Cmd+F / Ctrl+F.

Results update as you type (incremental search)
It searches file names, memos, and note text (Markdown) together
Combines with the Sidebar's tag and kind filters as AND
Japanese text is supported
Separate words with spaces to keep only items matching all of them (below)

Narrowing with spaces¶

Separate your search into words with spaces, and only items matching all of them remain. Both ASCII and full-width spaces work.

Input	What you get
`design memo`	Items containing both "design" and "memo"
`memo design`	The same — word order doesn't matter
`design memo` (as one word, no space)	Only where the two run together

Each word may match in a different place. For example meeting quote also matches a note whose file name contains "meeting" and whose body contains "quote".

Typing two or three words you remember is usually the fastest way to find something.

Same rule in Quick Open and link suggestions

This applies to the search box, Quick Open (Cmd+P), and the Inspector's link field alike. Combine a date and a kind — 2026 minutes — to land in one shot.

Finding names that contain a space

A file named "design memo.md" is still found by typing design memo (it contains both words). There is no way to require that exact order, though — since word order is ignored, similarly named items may come along.

Seeing the match at a glance¶

While searching in Grid view, cards for notes whose body matched show an excerpt around the match instead of the opening lines, with the search term highlighted — so you can tell where it matched without opening the note.

Memos make PDFs and images findable

Even for PDFs, images, and Office files whose contents can't be searched, words written in the memo can be. Drop a line into the Inspector's "Memo" field and the item becomes findable later. → Memo

Press `Esc` to jump to the list¶

Pressing Esc in the search box moves focus to the list. The search text stays.

This is the keyboard path from "find" to "act".

Cmd+F / Ctrl+F into the search box
Type to filter
Esc to move focus to the list
Then arrow keys to move, Space to preview, T to tag, S to star

Single-letter shortcuts like T and S are treated as text input while a text field has focus. Esc back to the list makes them work.

Note

Esc does not clear the search text. The point is to act on the filtered results, so only focus moves. Clear the text by hand when you want to.

The same works from anywhere else

After clicking a tag in the sidebar, or typing in the Inspector's memo and tag fields, Esc moves focus back to the file list too → Keyboard shortcuts

About searches of 2 characters or fewer¶

Full-text search covers terms of 3 characters or more (a limitation of the index format).

With 2 characters or fewer, only file names and memos are searched (not note text). To reach body text with a short word, add a longer word alongside it.

This is decided per word. In AI minutes, "AI" is looked up in file names and memos, while "minutes" is also searched in note text.

Only notes (.md) have searchable text¶

This is intentional.

Kind	Body searchable?
Note (.md)	✅ Yes
Text files (.txt etc.)	❌ No (name matches only)
PDF	❌ No
Images (OCR)	❌ No
Office files	❌ No

About full-text search of PDF / OCR / Office

These were implemented once and withdrawn because extraction quality couldn't be trusted. A search that silently misses is worse than no search. Treat full-text search as covering note text only.

Quick Open¶

The palette opened with Cmd+P / Ctrl+P.

Matches file names only — never body text
No full-text index involved, so it searches from a single character
Space-separated words all have to match the name (design memo finds both "design memo" and "memo_design draft")
Names are always listed with their extension (meeting notes.md), so you can tell a .md from a .pdf of the same name. This is independent of the extension setting for lists
Each row shows the item's tags as chips on the right (color dot + name; 5 or more fold into "+N")

Tags are display-only here

Tags in Quick Open are not searched. Matching tags on every keystroke would make it feel slow, so they are display only. Use the Sidebar to search by tag.

After choosing¶

The item you choose in Quick Open is selected in the list without being opened. From there, Enter opens it, Space previews it, T edits tags.

Clear the filter with the "×" on the toolbar chip.

Chose an item while a tag filter was on and it isn't in the list?

Quick Open never drops the filters you already have. With a tag filter on, picking an item that doesn't carry that tag shows the "Selected by (name)" chip but no row in the list (the empty list says it doesn't match the other filters). Press the "×" on the tag chip and the item appears — the name filter stays, the item stays selected, and Enter opens it.

The “Selected by …” chip stays until you remove it

The chip you get from Quick Open, from backlinks "Select N items", or from a calendar date is just one more filter that stacks with the rest. Clicking a tag, typing in the search box, or switching sidebar sections will not drop it (the list only gets narrower). Remove it with the chip's "×", or clear everything with Cmd+Shift+F.

Ways to filter¶

Everything that narrows the list stacks as AND.

Means	Where
Tags	Sidebar (multi-select; multiple tags = AND)
Kind	Sidebar (Notes / Images / Videos / Documents / Other)
Favorites	Sidebar
Untagged	Sidebar
Text search	The toolbar search box
File size	The toolbar "Size" button
Date	Click a date in the calendar view (or "Show on calendar" in the Inspector)

Clearing every filter at once¶

After stacking a few conditions, Cmd+Shift+F (Ctrl+Shift+F on Windows) drops everything in the table above at once and puts the list back to "All".

That covers the sidebar selection (tags, kinds, favorites, untagged, trash), tag exclusions, the search term, the size filter, and temporary filters such as a calendar day selection
The view does not change (grid / list / calendar / map stay as they are)
With nothing applied it just says "No filters are applied"
On macOS it is also "View → Clear All Filters"; on both platforms it is in the command palette (Cmd+Shift+P) as "Clear All Filters"

You can still clear them one by one

To drop a single tag or the search term, use the "×" on its chip, clear the search box, or click the sidebar entry again. Cmd+Shift+F is the shortcut for all of them at once.

Filtering by file size¶

The toolbar's "Size" button opens Min and Max fields. Type a number, pick a unit (KB / MB / GB), and the list narrows as you type.

Setting just one side is fine ("Min 100 MB" alone means "100 MB and up")
Both bounds are inclusive (with Min 1 MB, a file of exactly 1 MB still shows up)
While the filter is on, the button is highlighted and shows a summary such as "1.0 MB and up". The same summary appears as a chip above the list, and its "×" clears it
It stacks as AND with tags, kinds, and the search term

Tracking down what's eating disk space

Filter by "Min 100 MB" and set the order to "Size (largest first)" to walk through your biggest files, sending the ones you don't need to the trash.

Sort order¶

Switch with the toolbar dropdown. The default is "Modified (newest first)".

Order	Basis
Relevance	How strongly an item matches the search term (default while searching)
Modified (newest / oldest first)	The file's last-modified time (newest first is the default)
Added (newest / oldest first)	When it was imported into Melanite
Created (newest / oldest first)	The file's creation time
Name (A–Z / Z–A)	File name
Size (largest / smallest first)	File size

In the list view, clicking column headers also switches the order (clicking the same header again flips between ascending and descending, and the dropdown follows along).

Relevance¶

As soon as you start typing in the search box, the order switches to "Relevance". Items that contain the term more often — or where it stands out in a short body — rise to the top, so the note you are after doesn't sit buried below newer files. Clearing the search term restores the previous order.

The switch only happens while the order is the default ("Modified (newest first)"); an order you picked yourself is never changed for you
You can also select it from the dropdown, but without a search term there is nothing to rank, so it behaves as modified-date order
Name-only searches (Quick Open, Cmd+P) and terms shorter than three characters don't use the full-text index, so those fall back to modified-date order as well

About name ordering

Name order is natural (numbers compared as values) and case-insensitive. Kanji, however, sort by code point, not by reading.

Smart filters¶

Save a frequently used filter under a name.

Saving¶

Filter by search text, tags, kinds, file size, etc.
Press "Save" in the toolbar (it appears only while filtering)
Give it a name

Using¶

They line up in the Sidebar's "Smart Filters" section.

Click to apply in one shot (search box, tag selection, and section are restored to the saved state)
Click the active one again to clear it and return to "All"
The entry highlights when the current filter matches the saved one
Right-click to rename, change the icon, or delete

Changing the icon¶

Right-click → "Rename & Change Icon…" to set any emoji as the icon shown next to the name.

Pick one of the suggested buttons, or type an emoji into the small field on the left (Ctrl+⌘+Space on macOS, ⊞+. on Windows opens the emoji picker)
Leave the field empty to restore the default icon (☆)

Example

Save "untagged AND images" as "images to sort" and you can pull up the cleanup queue with one click.