How to filter notes

By default, notes are listed chronologically based on the date and time they were last modified. If you prefer to list notes by creation date or title, the default sort preference can be changed in Settings.

Scrolling the list view becomes cumbersome as you add more notes and need to recall them. Therefore, we made filtering notes quick and effortless. We recommend using tags extensively to get the most out of the notes filter. Tags act as a folder replacement, making filtering notes an even more effective way to find notes quickly.

Filtering notes with keywords#

To begin, click the search bar or type the CMD + F keyboard shortcut to select it. Start typing the word related to the note you’re searching for. Each letter typed filters the list in real-time. Press the spacebar and type another word if the first word doesn’t reveal the note you want to recall.

Once you find the note, there are three methods to open it:

1. Click on the note.
2. Press the Return/Enter key if it’s the first result.
3. Use the ↓ key to select the note in the list and then press the Return/Enter key.

Filtering notes with tags#

There are two ways to filter notes with tags. The first method is to type # and then the tag name. As you type, the tag list shortens only to display the tags that match your text.

The other method is to click on a tag in the notes list.

Advanced search operators#

Beyond words and tags, the search bar understands a few operators you can combine to narrow your results:

• "exact phrase" — match an exact phrase.
• -word or -#tag — exclude notes that contain that word or tag.
• -# — show only notes that have no tags. Combine it with a tag, such as #work -#, to show only notes tagged with that tag and no others.
• -! — show only notes that have no image.
• before:2026-01-31 and after:2026-01-31 — filter by when a note was last updated. A year or month on its own also works, such as after:2026.
• filetype:pdf, filetype:image, or filetype:file — show notes that contain that kind of attachment.
• intitle:word — match only notes with the word in their title.
• @name — find notes you shared with a specific person.
• is:public or is:shared — show notes that have a public link, or notes shared with other people. Add a - to exclude them, such as -is:shared.
• is:duplicate — show notes that have a copy, such as an exact copy or a bookmark of the same page. Use -is:duplicate to hide them. To clean them up, see cleaning up duplicate notes.

You can mix these together. For example, project #work -#archive after:2026 finds notes that contain the word project, are tagged #work, are not tagged #archive, and were updated since the start of 2026.