How search matches your text

The single most common source of confusion is that the = sign means two different things depending on where it appears. Read this section once and the rest of search becomes predictable.

There are three matching modes:

Mode	How you trigger it	What it matches	Substring?	Fuzzy (typos)?
Default	type words with no prefix	whole words and substrings, anywhere in title, content or attributes, relevance-ranked	Yes	Yes
Exact full-text	a leading = (e.g. =sync)	the exact whole word or phrase, ignoring surrounding punctuation	No	No
Attribute / property equality	= inside a #label=value or note.property=value clause	the entire attribute or property value, exactly	No	No

Default matching (no prefix)#

Rule: typing words with no prefix finds notes that contain those words anywhere in the title, content or attributes, as whole words or as substrings. The closest matches are ranked first.

Query	Example note content	Matches?	Why
sync	please sync the folders	Yes (ranked higher)	contains the exact word sync
sync	synchronize the database now	Yes (ranked lower)	sync is a substring of synchronize

Exact match with the = prefix#

Rule: a leading = switches the full-text search to exact matching. It finds the whole word or phrase only, ignoring surrounding punctuation, with no substring and no fuzzy matching. Use it when a normal search returns too many near-matches.

Query	Example note content	Matches?	Why
=sync	see (sync) mode	Yes	(sync) is the whole word sync; punctuation is ignored
=sync	in sync, then continue	Yes	sync, is the whole word sync
=sync	he said "sync" out loud	Yes	"sync" is the whole word sync
=sync	synchronize the database now	No	= never matches substrings
=sync	please send the file	No	= never matches typos / fuzzy

To match an exact phrase, quote it after the = (single, double or backtick quotes all work). The phrase must appear as consecutive words, but punctuation between or around them is ignored:

Query	Example note (title or content)	Matches?	Why
="project plan"	title Project Plan	Yes	the title is exactly the phrase
="project plan"	the (project plan) is ready to share	Yes	the consecutive phrase appears; punctuation is ignored
="project plan"	the plan for this project is late	No	the words are present but not consecutive

Attribute and property equality (=, !=)#

Rule: when = compares an attribute or property, as in #label=value or note.title=value, it is strict full-value equality: the whole value must equal what you typed, ignoring case and diacritics. This is not word matching. != inverts it.

The examples below assume four notes: Austria (#capital=Vienna), Somewhere (#capital=Vienna Austria), Czech Republic (#capital=Prague) and Switzerland (#capital=Zürich).

Query	Example label value	Matches?	Why
#capital=Vienna	Vienna	Yes	the whole value equals Vienna
#capital=Vienna	Vienna Austria	No	the whole value is Vienna Austria, not Vienna
#capital="Vienna Austria"	Vienna Austria	Yes	quote a multi-word value to match it in full
#capital=Zurich	Zürich	Yes	equality ignores diacritics
#capital!=Vienna	Prague	Yes	!= matches every value that is not Vienna
#capital!=Vienna	Vienna	No	!= excludes the exact value

Quick search relaxes this. The Quick search bar and autocomplete treat an attribute = as "contains", so #capital=Vienna typed there also matches Vienna Austria. The strict full-value equality described here applies only in the full Search.

Fuzzy operators (~= and ~*)#

Rule: the fuzzy operators tolerate typos. ~= (fuzzy-equals) matches a value that is a close whole-word variant of your term. ~* (fuzzy-contains) matches when your term appears anywhere inside the value, either as a fragment or as a near-miss. Both work on note properties such as note.title and note.content, and on labels (#label). Fuzzy operators accept terms of at least 3 characters, though how many typos each term tolerates depends on its length — see Fuzzy tolerance below.

The examples assume a note titled Books carrying the label #author=Tolkien, and a note whose content is learn programming today.

Query	Example value	Matches?	Why
note.title ~= boks	title Books	Yes	one edit away from books
#author ~= tolkein	author Tolkien	Yes	tolkein is a typo of tolkien
note.content ~* progr	learn programming today	Yes	progr is a fragment of programming
note.content ~* programing	learn programming today	Yes	programing is one edit from programming

Fuzzy tolerance#

Rule: how many typos are tolerated depends on the length of your search term. Short terms must match exactly, because a single edit is enough to turn one short word into an unrelated one; longer terms have greater tolerance.

Term length	Edits allowed
1–3 characters	0 (exact only)
4–6 characters	1
7+ characters	2

Query	Term length	Example note content	Matches?	Why
cat	3	a bright red car	No	No edits are allowed below 4 characters, so cat does not reach car
carr	4	a blue debit card	Yes	1 edit is within budget for 4–6 character terms
ceck	4	the latest tech trends	No	ceck→tech needs 2 edits; only 1 is allowed at this length
combinef	8	the values were combined together	Yes	combinef→combined is 1 edit; up to 2 are allowed at 7+ characters

Relevance ranking#

Rule: results are ordered by how well they match, not merely whether they match. Exact whole-word and phrase matches rank above substring and fuzzy matches, and a note where your words appear as a consecutive phrase outranks one where they are scattered.

Query	Ranked higher	Ranked lower	Why
sync	please sync the folders	synchronize the database now	exact word beats substring
you and me	I like you and me as a phrase	the menu is here and you know it	consecutive phrase beats scattered words

What is searchable#

A search looks at more than the visible body text. All of the following are indexed and searchable:

• note titles,
• note body content,
• labels and relations (attributes),
• link URLs and the titles/descriptions of link previews,
• the titles of notes that a note reference-links to.

The last point is the least obvious: if a note's only content is a reference link to another note, searching for that other note's title still finds the linking note.

Query	Setup	Matches?	Why
special topic	a note whose only content is a reference link to a note titled Special Topic	Yes, and the linked target ranks first	the target's title is indexed into the linking note's searchable text
special	the same note (only a reference link to Special Topic)	Yes, one word from the target's title is enough	the indexed title is normalized just like body text, so even one lowercased word matches
zurich	a note whose only content is a reference link to a note titled Zürich	Yes	the indexed title has its accents normalized, so the plain form matches the accented title

Diacritics#

Rule: accents are normalized on both sides, so an accented word and its plain form match each other.

Query	Example note content	Matches?
ktory	slovo ktorý znamena nieco	Yes
ktorý	the word ktory appears here	Yes

Regular expressions (%=)#

Rule: the %= operator matches a property or label value against a regular expression.

Query	Example note content	Matches?
note.content %= 'colou?r'	my favorite color of all	Yes
note.content %= 'colou?r'	my favourite colour of all	Yes