Use advanced search syntax

Advanced search in Evernote uses modifiers, special keywords followed by a colon and a value (e.g., tag:travel, created:20240101), to help you find exactly what you’re looking for. Modifiers tell Evernote which parts of your notes to search and how to interpret your search terms. They’re the building blocks of precise searches, and you can combine multiple modifiers to refine your results.

Modifiers typically fall into a few common categories:

  • Scope modifiers limit where the search takes place, for example, you can search within a specific notebook (notebook:Travel) or return notes that match any of several terms (any: recipe dessert).
  • Core note property modifiers filter based on how a note is organized or what it contains, such as tags (tag:work), titles (intitle:budget), or attached files (resource:application/pdf).
  • Attribute modifiers target built-in note metadata like the app used to create the note (source:mobile.ios), the author’s name (author:alex), or the reminder status (reminderTime:day).
  • Advanced content modifiers allow you to search inside the structure of a note, for example, finding notes that contain checkboxes (todo:true) or encrypted text (encryption:).

Here's a table of the most common search operators and examples of how to use them.

Note on search suggestions:

Advanced search syntax is not supported in the suggestions that appear as you type in the search modal. However, once you press Enter/Return to perform the search, your syntax will be applied correctly and you’ll see the filtered results.

Note on offline search:

Not all the advanced search operators are available offline.
Operators that require an active internet connection are marked as not available offline in the description.

 

Operator Description Example

intitle:

Searches within the title of the note.

intitle:coffee searches for notes whose title contains "coffee".

notebook:

Searches for notes stored in the specified notebook.

notebook:Finance will only search for notes within the 'Finance' notebook.

stack:

Searches for notes stored in the specified notebook stack.

stack:Contracts will only search for notes within the 'Contracts' notebook stack.

any:

Searches for notes that match any of the search terms listed. Without this operator, Evernote search will return only those notes that match all of the specified search terms.

any: pizza beer will return all notes containing either "pizza" or "beer" (removing this operator would return only notes containing "pizza" and "beer").

tag:

Searches for notes tagged with the specified tag.

tag:medical will return notes that have the tag "medical".

Note: Use tag:* to return all notes with tags.

-tag:

Searches for notes not tagged with the specified tag.

-tag:medical will return notes that do not have the tag "medical".

Note: Use -tag:* to return all notes without tags.

created:

Searches for notes created on or after the date specified. Note that the date specified must be formatted like this: YYYYMMDD (where YYYY is the 4-digit year, MM is the 2-digit month, and DD is the 2-digit day), or as a date relative to the current date (e.g., day-1 to represent yesterday, week-2 to represent two weeks ago, etc.)

created:day-2 will return notes that were created in the last two days.

created:20151218 will return notes created on or after December 18, 2015.

updated:

Searches for notes updated on or after the date specified. If a note hasn't been updated since the date it was created, the 'updated' date will be the same as the 'created' date.

updated:day-2 will return notes that have been updated in the last two days.

resource:

Searches for notes that contain specific types of media (audio, images, etc.).

resource:application/pdf will return all notes that contain a PDF file.

resource:image/jpeg will return all notes containing an embedded JPEG image.

resource:audio/* will return all notes that contain some type of audio file.

source:

Searches for notes by the application or other source used to create them (e.g., 'mail.smtp' for notes added via email, 'web.clip' for notes added using Web Clipper, etc.).

source:mobile.* will return all notes created on a mobile application of some type.

source:web.clip OR source:web.clip7 OR source:mobile.share.extension will return all notes added using Web Clipper. (Note: This particular example uses Boolean search)

todo:

Searches for notes containing one or more checkboxes.

Not available offline.

todo:true will return all notes containing a checkbox that is checked.

todo:false will return all notes containing a checkbox that is not checked.

todo:* will return all notes containing a checkbox, regardless of whether or not it is checked.

encryption:

Searches for notes that include text that has been encrypted with Evernote's built-in encryption system.

Not available offline.

encryption:

Note: This operator does not require additional values.

contains:

Searches for notes by type of content they contain.

Not available offline.

 contains:url will return all notes containing a URL.
Item Syntax
Addresses contains:address
Archive files contains:fileArchive
Attachments contains:attachment
Audio files contains:fileAudio
Calendar events contains:calendarEvent
Checkboxes contains:enTodo
Code blocks contains:enCodeblock
Contacts contains:contact
Dates contains:date
Document files contains:fileDocument
Email addresses contains:email
Encrypted text contains:enCrypt
Google Drive contains:urlGoogleDrive
Images contains:fileImage
Integers contains:numberInteger
Lists contains:list
Numbers contains:numberReal
Office files contains:fileOffice
PDF files contains:filePdf
Percentages contains:numberPercent
Person names contains:person
Phone numbers contains:phoneNumber
Presentations contains:filePresentation
Prices contains:numberPrice
Spreadsheets contains:fileSpreadsheet
Tables contains:table
Tasks contains:task
Tasks (Completed) contains:taskCompleted
Tasks (Not Completed) contains:taskNotCompleted
Time contains:time
URLs contains:url
Video contains:fileVideo
Web clips contains:webclip

Tips

Punctuation

  • Upper and lower case are ignored. For example, Brave and brave return the same results.
  • Multiple words return only results containing all the words. For example, world new brave returns results with all 3 words anywhere in it.
  • Quotation marks return results with an exact match. For example, "brave new world" returns only results with those 3 words in that exact sequence.
  • An asterisk at the end of a word returns results with a minimum of those letters. For example, brav* returns results containing brave, bravo, bravado, etc.

Exclude items using the minus sign (-)

You can exclude specific terms or filters in your search by placing a minus sign (-) in front of them. This allows you to find notes that don’t match a given condition. This negation works with most search filters, and even plain keywords, giving you more control over your search results.

For example, -tag:completed will show all notes that don’t have the tag completed, and -potato will exclude notes containing the word potato, such as Sweet potato pie, but will return results like Mash four potatoes together.

For more information on how search works, visit this page.

Boolean search

Boolean search uses operators that can combine or exclude certain terms in a search query. In Evernote, you can search using the operators AND, OR, NOT, and ( ). To learn more, visit Use Boolean search for targeted search results.

For more information on the full library of Evernote search operators, visit our Search Grammar specifications.


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