> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.openwhispr.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Search your notes

> Find a note by the words in it or by what it was about, including transcripts of past meetings.

Search covers everything you've saved — dictations, meeting transcripts,
uploads and notes you typed yourself.

## Searching

Use the search box above your notes list, or **Search notes** in the sidebar,
and type. Results narrow as you go; when nothing matches you'll get
*"No notes found for …"* rather than an empty screen.

## Two ways of matching

OpenWhispr searches in two ways at once, which is why a search sometimes finds
the right note even when your words aren't in it:

| Kind                     | Finds                                                                                                                                                     |
| ------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Keyword search**       | Notes containing the words you typed                                                                                                                      |
| **Meaning-based search** | Notes about the same thing, even in different words — searching *"budget disagreement"* can surface a note that says *"we couldn't agree on the numbers"* |

Both run on your own machine. Meaning-based search works from an index
OpenWhispr builds locally as notes are saved.

## Searching a meeting

Meeting transcripts are searchable like any other note, so a name or a phrase
from a call three weeks ago is a search away. If you named the speakers, their
names are part of the text and searchable too — see
[speaker labels](/help/meetings/speaker-labels).

## Asking rather than searching

When you're not looking for a *note* but for an *answer*, the chat agent
searches your notes for you and answers from what it finds — useful for
questions like "what did we decide about pricing?" that span several notes.
Each note also has its own chat panel, scoped to just that note.

See [the chat agent](/help/agent/chat-agent).

## If a note doesn't turn up

1. **Check which space you're in.** Notes in a team space are listed separately
   from your personal ones.
2. **Check it was saved at all.** With **Data Retention** turned off,
   dictations are pasted but never stored — see
   [what we store](/help/privacy/what-we-store-and-for-how-long).
3. **Try a phrase from the middle of it** rather than the title. Titles are
   often auto-generated and may not say what you remember.
4. **If a dictation went missing rather than a note**, there's a specific
   recovery path — see
   [recover a lost dictation](/help/fix/recover-a-lost-dictation).

## Related

* [Organise notes with folders](/help/notes/organise-with-folders)
* [The chat agent](/help/agent/chat-agent)
* [Recover a lost dictation](/help/fix/recover-a-lost-dictation)

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