Search in Roma
⌘K finds anything by title at once, and the operator searches by meaning.
Roma searches in two ways. ⌘K on the Mac and in the browser, and the search sheet on your iPhone, find anything by its title in an instant, from what is already on your device. Your operator searches by meaning: ask in your own words and it looks through your tasks and notes for what you mean, rather than for the exact words you typed.
⌘K on the Mac and in the browser
Press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on a Windows keyboard) and start typing. One ranked list answers: things you can do here, pages, your lists, tasks, items, experts, automations, and at the tail a few lines from your conversation with the operator, which arrive from the server a moment after you pause. Enter views the row, and ⌘ Enter opens it in a new tab (keyboard shortcuts).
The matching is forgiving. Capitals and accents do not matter, so "muller" finds Müller. Words match in any order. A typo is allowed: none in a word under four letters, one up to seven letters, two from eight. The first letters of words match, so "proroa" finds Product roadmap and "qbr" finds Quarterly Business Review. A task is found by its title and by the first lines of its body, a list by its name and its instructions, an expert by its name alone. Nothing is found by the name of the list it sits on.
The best match comes first, and a row you picked before for the same letters leads, even over a closer match. Among rows that match equally, things you can do come before places, then your work, then tasks you finished, then conversation lines. Forty rows and three conversation lines are the cut, so type more letters to narrow. A task you completed stays findable for eight hours, marked as completed (task status and completing tasks).
With nothing typed, ⌘K shows the actions of the page you are on, Recent (the seven things you touched last, including ones shared with you) and the pages. ⌘K never calls the server for your own things, so it answers offline and never waits.
The search on a list's page
Every list's page has a search of its own in its bar, the magnifier beside Sort and Filter. Type, and the rows narrow to the items whose title or whose property values match. While you are searching, the list's saved filter and sort are set aside, and a reload opens the list without it.
The search sheet on your iPhone
The search icon at the top of the Tasks tab opens the one search sheet (the Tasks tab). Before you type, it shows your recent searches and the eight items you touched last. As you type, the same forgiving matching runs over everything on your phone, grouped under Tasks, Items, Lists, Automations and Experts, with lines from your conversation with the operator beneath. Tap a result to view it, and press and hold a task or a list for its menu. With nothing found, the sheet says "No results. Try a different word, or describe what you are looking for."
Ask the operator
The operator's search is the one that understands what you mean. Ask "what did I note about my foot" or "where did I write down my tax number", and it searches your tasks, notes and items by meaning and by keyword at the same time, then answers with what it found and points at the item. The note can say Steuernummer and the question tax ID, and it still lands. Your lists answer to their names too, so "my wine list" finds the list even when it is empty. Add a span and it narrows to things created then: "the notes I took last week", "what I captured in May". A question whose answer could live in your own notes is searched before the operator ever says it does not know, and a question that matches nothing gets an honest nothing rather than the nearest row (how to use the operator).
An agent connected to your account has the same search (what an agent can do).
Questions people ask
Does search find text inside a note's body?
Partly. ⌘K and the iPhone's search sheet match a note by its title and by the first lines of its body, as long as the words are there as written. For a phrase deep inside a long note, or for the idea rather than the words, ask your operator: it searches the whole body by meaning and by keyword and hands you the passage it found.
Can I search for a task I already completed?
Yes, for eight hours after you completed it. ⌘K and the search sheet show it with its completed mark, below live tasks that match as well, so finding what you finished this morning is a normal search. Older completed tasks are still on their list under its Show completed rule, and your operator finds them by meaning at any time.
Does ⌘K search my conversation with the operator?
Yes. A moment after you pause typing, up to three lines from your conversation that match land at the tail of the list, below everything on your device, and Enter on one opens the conversation at that line. They never push a task or a list off the top.
Why does the operator find things ⌘K does not?
⌘K matches titles, forgivingly but by letters, and it runs on your device without the server so it answers at once. The operator searches by meaning across the whole body of your tasks and notes, which is why "where did I write down my tax number" finds a note that says Steuernummer. One is for reaching what you can name, the other for recalling what you cannot.