The search dialog finds your chats by title and message text, and it also finds images, documents, and projects. It is available in the web and desktop apps.
Open search
Select the Search chats icon at the top of the sidebar, or press Cmd+K on a Mac or Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux (the default shortcut). In the Space section, reached from Spaces in the icon rail, the Search icon in the sidebar header opens the same dialog.
With the box empty, the dialog lists your six most recent chats under Recent chats. Archived chats are not included. Type to start a search. Once you type, a row of tabs appears: All, Chats, Images, Documents, and Projects.
What each tab searches
| Tab | What it searches |
|---|---|
| All | Chats, projects, and documents together. |
| Chats | Chat titles and the text of messages. Each result shows a snippet around the best match and the chat's last activity date. Opening a result opens the chat and, when a message matched, scrolls to that message. |
| Images | Images in your Library whose file name contains your text, shown as thumbnails. |
| Documents | Files in your Library and in the cloud sources you have connected and not hidden. Library files are matched on their file names. Newest results come first, and the part of the name that matches is shown in bold. |
| Projects | Project names. Typing part of a name is enough, and capitalization does not matter. Archived projects are not listed. |
Cloud sources in the Documents search can include SharePoint, Box, and Dropbox, and Google Drive where it is available to your account. To change which sources are searched, or to include hidden files, select the gear beside the tabs (Library settings).
Move through results
- Use the up and down arrow keys to move between results, then press Enter to open the highlighted one. On the Images tab the arrow keys move through the thumbnail grid.
- Select Clear to empty the box and start again.
- If nothing matches, the dialog says "No results". If search itself fails, it says "Search isn't available right now." and offers Try again.
What chat search leaves out
Chat search looks only at your own chats, and some chats are left out on purpose:
- Archived chats.
- Chats started in Work mode or Code mode, and bot chats.
A message matches when it contains every word you typed (punctuation is ignored). A chat title matches when it contains the whole text you typed, with capitalization ignored. Once the last word is three or more characters long, it also matches the start of a longer word, so results can appear while you are still typing. If a chat has been branched, it is listed once.
The search reads up to 200 characters of your query and returns up to 30 chats. For a very common word it looks only at your 300 newest matching messages, so older chats can be missed; add another word to narrow the search.
To bring an archived chat back into search, restore it from Settings > Data Controls > Archived chats. For managing your files, see How do I manage my files in the ZeroTwo Library?
Search on iPhone and Android
The iOS and Android apps have a search screen for chats only. It does not have the tabs for images, documents, or projects.