Searching

Searching is often the fastest way to reach a thought. These topics explain the search box, which also creates thoughts, how to narrow results or include your other brains and public brains, searching the web from a thought, and reports that list thoughts by their attributes. The last topic explains what to do when search can't find something that exists.

• Finding and Creating Thoughts — The brain toolbar's search box jumps you to any thought as you type and also searches inside notes and attached files, with exact phrases and AND, OR and NOT; from it you can create a new thought or link an existing one to the active thought.
• Search Filters — Narrow a search to part of a brain with Childward only or Selection only, and filter cross-brain results by their source.
• Searching Other and Public Brains — By default a search also looks through your other brains and shows those results on the Other Brains tab; public brains are searched only when you use TheBrain in a browser, and you set the scope per brain in Settings > Brain > Search.
• Web Search — Search the web for a thought's name (or selected note text) with one command, using the search engine of your choice.
• Reports — Build a filtered list of the thoughts in a brain by type, tag, kind, access, dates, or attachments — such as orphan, parentless or untagged thoughts, large attachments, or attachment paths that are too long to sync — and run it ad hoc or save it to rerun later.
• Rebuilding the Search Index — When search can't find a thought, note, or attachment that you know exists, or reports and the to-do list look incomplete, rebuild the brain's search index.