search function: why don’t boolean search terms work?
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Hi,
For context on how I use Simplenote, I’m a creative using it for 70-80% of my notes, the rest are largely on physical media. I often combine quick random unrelated thoughts into a single note titled by the date, for example, today’s note would just be titled “10/21”. Other entries are project brainstorms, snippets of creative writing, personal journaling, etc.
The challenge I have is when using the search function, the search results don’t make it easy for the user to locate the proper note. In today’s example I was searching past notes containing the phrase “app ideas”. In the target note I was searching for, I had written “app / software / product ideas”. And it was difficult to find the relevant note because the highlighted blue text in the previewed result(s) were things like:
- “… we were at Capp Street… “
- “… the kid’s happiness…”
- “… he had so many brilliant ideas… “
… and so on for a long list of results. It turned out the note I was looking for was that last one, but it was a combined note in which I was both jotting down an impression I had that day as well as noting down this app idea. Thankfully it was a note that I had just written recently so I knew which day to check. But I know if I were to be searching for this in a year’s time, there’s no way I would find the buried goods, so to speak. I’d share a screenshot but there’s too much personal stuff in it so hopefully the examples are enough to explain the challenge.
- technical details: Simplenote v2.21, macOS Sonoma 14.3.1, macbook air m1 (2020)
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P.S. To try and clarify a bit, I ran several search attempts, listed below, with the actual search text in bold, and explanation in brackets.
- app ideas [no quotation marks]
- “app” “ideas” [incl. quotation marks]
- “app” AND “ideas” [including q. marks as well as AND boolean]
- “app ideas” [with quotation marks for the exact match, however this didn’t work given the target text essentially had a wildcard in the middle
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We understand your frustration with the current limitations and appreciate your detailed explanation of your use case.
Currently, Simplenote doesn’t support boolean search functionality. This means you can’t use operators like AND, OR, or NOT to refine your search results. We recognize that this can make it challenging to find specific notes, especially when dealing with a large number of entries.
Your feedback is valuable to us, and we’ve added your vote to the list of potential future enhancements for the Simplenote app. However, we can’t provide a timeline for when this feature might be available.
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Note, however, that ANDing does work with tags. Searching for “tag:foo tag:bar fred” will find occurrences of fred only in notes tagged foo AND bar. This lets you use a tag as a pseudo folder. I realize this doesn’t help the OP here, but it is a very useful feature.
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Having exactly the same search type of problem that 9jwx7875vb described so well last October. Has there been any progress towards solving this? as much as i love using Simplenote, it’s leaving a lot of my search activities (that I need for my work) on the table. Look forward to hearing
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@mdraznin Thanks for following up and for sharing how important search is for your workflow. We don’t have an update to share on this yet, but the team is aware of the issue and your feedback helps us keep it on the radar. I’ve added your case to the existing request so it’s captured alongside other experiences.
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Right now I search with tags like johnswift37 suggested, and that meets my needs most of the time, but sometimes when I’m in a hurry I just jot down a quick note and forget to tag it, or don’t use the same tag consistently, and those notes are hard to track down later. So I would also really appreciate boolean search.
Simplenote Support Forums 