Notely

Search ​

Search is a first-class feature in Notely. You can search within the current note, across the entire workspace, or filter for specific content types.

1. Find in Current Note ​

Press Ctrl + F to open the in-note search bar:

  • Search by keyword.
  • Jump through matches using Next (F3) and Previous (Shift + F3).
  • Case-sensitivity and whole-word matching toggles are supported.

Press Ctrl + H to open Find and Replace.

2. Global Workspace Search ​

Press Ctrl + Shift + F to open the Global Search panel:

  • Searches all .md note titles, folders, metadata, and note content.
  • Results update instantly as you type.
  • Matches are shown with content snippets highlighting where the term appeared.

Synonym & Term Support ​

Search matches related concepts even if the exact keyword differs. Searching for:

  • Repository, Repo, Git, Version Control, Commit, History, Diff
  • will all surface related version control documentation and notes.

3. Regular Expression Search (Regex) ​

Enable advanced matching by clicking the .* button in the search bar:

  • Search using standard regular expression patterns.
  • Notely checks your regex syntax live and shows a warning if the pattern is invalid.

Common Regex Examples:

  • Find functions: function\s+\w+\s*\(
  • Find issue IDs: Error: \[[A-Z0-9_]+\]
  • Find markdown links: \[([^\]]+)\]\(([^)]+)\)

4. Code Block Search ​

Filter your search results to code snippets only:

  1. Click the Code Blocks filter in the global search panel.
  2. Enter your keyword or regex.
  3. Notely will only return matches found inside fenced code blocks (```).

5. Semantic Search (AI-Powered) ​

When AI embeddings are configured, Notely supports meaning-based search:

  • Matches concepts rather than exact words (e.g. searching "backup" finds notes discussing "disaster recovery" or "exporting").
  • Requires the Generate Embeddings toggle to be enabled in AI settings.
  • The status bar displays the freshness state of the search index.

→ AI Setup & Embeddings