docspell/modules/microsite/docs/doc/finding.md

---
layout: docs
title: Finding Items
permalink: doc/finding
---

# {{ page.title }}

Items can be searched by their annotated meta data and their contents
using full text search. The landing page shows a list of current
items. Items are displayed sorted by their date, newest first.

Docspell has two modes for searching: a simple search bar and a search
menu with many options. Both are active at the same time, but only one
is visible. You can switch between them without affecting the results.


## Search Bar

<img style="float:right;" src="../img/search-bar.png" height="50">

By default, the search bar is shown. It provides a refined view of the
search menu. The dropdown contains different options to do a quick
search.

### *All Names* and *Contents*

These two options correspond to the same named field in the search
menu. If you switch between search menu and search bar (by clicking
the icon on the left), you'll see that they are the same fields.
Typing in the search bar also fills the corresponding field in the
search menu (and vice versa).

- The *All Names* searches in the item name, item notes, names of
  correspondent organization and person, and names of concering person
  and equipment. It uses a simple substring search.
- The option *Contents* searches the contents of all attachments
  (documents), attachment names, the item name and item notes. It uses
  full text search. However, it does not search the names of attached
  meta data.

When searching with one of these fields active, it simply submits the
(hidden) search menu. So if the menu has other fields filled out, they
will affect the result, too. Using one of these fields, the bar is
just a reduced view of the search menu.

So you can choose tags or correspondents in the search menu and
further restrict the results using full text search. The results will
be returned sorted by the item date, newest first.

If the left button in the search bar shows a little blue bubble, it
means that there are more search fields filled out in the search menu
that you currently can't see. In this case the results are not only
restricted by the search term given in the search-bar, but also by
what is specified in the search menu.


### *Contents Only*

This option has no corresponding part in the search menu. Searching
with this option active, there is only a full text search done in the
attachments contents, attachment names, item name and item notes.

The results are not ordered by item date, but by relevance with
respect to the search term. This ordering is returned from the full
text search engine and is simply transfered unmodified.


## Search Menu

<img style="float:right;" src="../img/search-menu.png" width="250">

The search menu can be opened by clicking the left icon in the top
bar. It shows some options to constrain the item list:

### Show new items

Clicking the checkbox "Only new" shows items that have not been
"Confirmed". All items that have been created by docspell and not
looked at are marked as "new" automatically.

### Names

Searches in names of certain properties. The `All Names` field is the
same as the search in the search bar (see above).

The `Name` field only searches in the name property of an item.

### Tags

Specify a list of tags that the items must have. When adding tags to
the "Include" list, an item must have all these tags in order to be
included in the results.

When adding tags to the "Exclude" list, then an item is removed from
the results if it has at least one of these tags.

### Correspondent

Pick a correspondent to show only these items.

### Concerned

Pick a concerned entity to show only these items.

### Date

Specify a date range to show only items whose date property is within
this range. If you want to see items of a specific day, choose the
same day for both fields.

For items that don't have an explicitly date property set, the created
date is used.

### Due Date

Specify a date range to show only items whose due date property is
within this range. Items without a due date are not shown.


### Direction

Specify whether to show only incoming, only outgoing or all items.


## Customize Substring Search

The substring search of the *All Names* and *Name* field can be
customized in the following way: A wildcard `*` can be used at the
start or end of a search term to do a substring match. A `*` means
"everything". So a term `*company` matches all names ending in
`company` and `*company*` matches all names containing the word
`company`. The matching is case insensitive.

Docspell adds a `*` to the front and end of a term automatically,
unless one of the following is true:

- The term already has a wildcard.
- The term is enclosed in quotes `"`.


## Full Text Search


### The Query

The query string for full text search is very powerful. Docspell
currently supports [Apache SOLR](https://lucene.apache.org/solr/) as
full text search backend, so you may want to have a look at their
[documentation on query
syntax](https://lucene.apache.org/solr/guide/8_4/query-syntax-and-parsing.html#query-syntax-and-parsing)
for a in depth guide.

- Wildcards: `?` matches any single character, `*` matches zero or
  more characters
- Fuzzy search: Appending a `~` to a term, results in a fuzzy search
  (search this term and similiar spelled ones)
- Proximity Search: Search for terms that "near" each other, again
  using `~` appended to a search phrase. Example: `"cheese cake"~5`.
- Boosting: apply more weight to a term with `^`. Example: `cheese^4
  cake` – cheese is 4x more important.

Docspell will preprocess the search query to prepare a query for SOLR.
It will by default search all indexed fields, which are: attachment
contents, attachment names, item name and item notes.


### The Results

When using full text search, each item in the result list is annotated
with the highlighted occurrence of the match.

<div class="thumbnail">
    <img src="../img/search-content-results.png">
</div>


## Screencast

<video width="100%" controls>
  <source src="../static/docspell-search-2020-06-24.webm" type="video/webm">
  Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>