Find anything
Search
Search looks through every thing and every list you have written, including the ones you forgot you wrote.
Why you'd care
Twos is built on the assumption that you will not organize. There are no folders, tagging is optional, and most people file almost nothing. That only works if retrieval is reliable, which makes search the load-bearing feature of the whole product rather than a convenience.
The practical consequence: you do not need to decide where something goes in order to get it back later.
The 60-second version
Web, Mac, Windows, and Linux
Press ⌘/, type a word or two, and use the tabs to narrow to this list, to lists, or to things.
iPhone, iPad, and Android
Open Search from the nav bar or side menu and start typing. Results update as you type.
Step by step
What it matches
Search ignores punctuation, spacing and accents, so "to-do", "todo" and "to do" all find each other, and "cafe" finds "café". You do not need to remember how you punctuated something a year ago.
It looks at thing text, notes, list names, and the text Twos has read out of your photos.
Narrowing
Tabs switch between everything, the list you are in, lists only, and things only. The list-only tab is the fastest way to find a list whose name you half remember.
When you already know the thing is in the list in front of you, ⌘⌥/ opens search on the This list tab directly, so you skip the step of narrowing after you type. The same action sits in the list menu as Search this list.
Filtering results
Once you run a search, by pressing Return or tapping a tag or a past search, a filter button appears next to the search box. It narrows the results by status (open, completed, canceled), by type (to-dos, dashes, bullets, numbers, notes), and by what a thing has: a star, a reminder, a photo, a link, a tag, or whether it is shared or published. The button waits until you send the search, so it stays out of the way while you are still typing.
Searching a date
Typing a date finds what you wrote that day. This is often quicker than navigating back through days when you know roughly when something happened.
Searching a tag
Typing # and a tag returns the lists that tag appears in, not just loose things. That is deliberate: a tag is usually a topic, and topics are more useful as groupings than as a flat pile.
Type more than one tag to require all of them. #work #urgent finds only what carries both. Mix tags and words the same way: #work invoice finds work things that mention an invoice.
Leaving things out
Put a minus sign in front of a word or tag to exclude it.
groceries -milkfinds groceries that do not mention milk.#work -#donefinds work things that are not tagged done.#work call -mom -#donecombines all of it.
An excluded word is checked against the thing text, its note and its link, ignoring capitals. It also matches inside longer words, so -milk leaves out "oatmilk" too. For a list, only the name is checked.
The minus has to touch the word. well-known and buy - milk are searched as ordinary text.
A search made only of exclusions, like -#done on its own, shows your most recent things that do not match. Add a word or a tag in front when you want the full history, since that is what lets search look through everything you have written.
Going further
Select straight from results. This is the trick nobody finds on their own. Search for something, select all the results, and act on them at once. Search a tag, select all, move them into a real list, and you have built a list out of six months of scattered notes in about ten seconds. See select many things at once.
Filters in the Things view. When you want structure rather than a keyword, the Things view filters by type, status, starred, has a reminder, has a photo, has a link, tagged, mentioned, and more. "Unfinished to-dos older than a month" is a filter, not a search.
Ask instead of searching. Chat answers questions across everything you have written, which is the better tool when you do not know the words to search for. "What did I say about the roof?" works when "roof" alone returns forty results.
Archived lists are included. Search finds archived lists and their things too, marked with an archive badge. Lists in Trash are left out. See archive.
Shortcuts and gestures
| Action | Mac | Windows and Linux |
|---|---|---|
| Open capture bar | ⌘K | Ctrl+K |
| Search | ⌘/ | Ctrl+/ |
| Select all in list | ⌘A | Ctrl+A |
| Clear selection | ⌘Esc | Ctrl+Esc |
| Search this list | ⌘⌥/ | Ctrl+Alt+/ |
Tips
- Two short words beat one long phrase. Search requires all your words to appear, so extra words narrow fast.
- When one word keeps pulling in the wrong results, exclude it with a minus instead of adding more words.
- If you cannot remember the wording, search the date instead.
- Photos of receipts, whiteboards and book pages are searchable by their text, which makes photographing things a reasonable filing strategy.
- When a search returns too much, switch to the things tab before you start refining words.
If it's not working
I know I wrote it and search cannot find it. Three usual causes. It is in Trash, which search leaves out. Restore it first. See Trash. It is in a list shared with you that you have since left. Or it is inside a photo whose text has not been read yet.
Search returns lists when I wanted things. You searched a tag, which returns lists by design. Use the things tab, or search the word without the #.
Results feel stale on a second device. Search runs over what has synced. Open the app and let it catch up, especially after a long time offline.
Related
- Select many things at once, which turns a search into a bulk action
- Today, since recent things are often faster to find by date
- Things and lists, for why filing is optional
- Build a second brain, search and resurfacing instead of structure