Search

Press ⌘K (CtrlK on Windows and Linux) or /, type a few letters and press ↵. You can also choose Search… at the top of the window.

What it finds

Results come in groups, with the best matches first.

Group	Finds
People	Names and contact details
Projects	Names, references and descriptions
Notes	Titles, tags, categories and text
Tasks	Titles
Events	Titles and places, from a week before today to a week after
Documents	Names
Go to	Areas, settings, task lists and folders
Actions	New note, person, project, task or list; Nifty help; Keyboard shortcuts

Type the start of any word. For example, lis finds "Lisbon trip". Accents and capitals don't matter, so jose finds José, and searches for names allow for a typo.

Narrow a search

Under the search box, choose Type to find only one kind of thing, or Day to find only what's on one day. You can also type them. For example, type:note lisbon finds notes about Lisbon, and when:today lists today's notes, tasks, events and documents.

Filter	Followed by
type:	note, person, project, task, event or document, or their plurals
when:	today, tomorrow, yesterday or a date such as 2026-10-19

A day means the day a note was written, a task's deadline or start, an event's day or a document's date. People and projects don't have a day. To find an event more than a week away, choose its day.

Move around

• ↑ and ↓ move through the results, across groups.
• ↵ opens the chosen result. A task or document opens over the page you're on, so closing it takes you back to where you were.
• Esc closes search. Press ⌘K again to select what you typed.

Search from any app on a Mac

While Nifty is open and you're signed in, press ⌃⌥⌘K in any app. Nifty comes to the front with search open, so you can find something and open it straight away.

To change the shortcut:

1. Choose Nifty → Desktop Settings…, and then Shortcuts.
2. Next to Search shortcut, choose Change… (or Record shortcut if it's off).
3. Press the keys you'd like. They must include ⌘, ⌃ or ⌥, unless you use a function key (F1 to F20).

To stop using the shortcut, choose Turn off.

Start something from what you typed

The actions use your words. For example, type Call the plumber and then choose New task “Call the plumber”. The task opens with your words filled in, ready to save.

Search inside notes

Under the note results, choose Search notes for “…” to see every matching note in Notes.

Search inside documents

To search the text of your documents, images included, and their summaries instead, start with +. For example, + amount due finds every document that mentions an amount due. Each result shows the words around the match.