Search: finding things by meaning

Nocarta finds your content two ways at once. It matches the words you type, and it matches what your content is about — so searching "rental contract" also finds a document called "Lease Agreement", and searching "construction company" finds a supplier recorded as Rossi Costruzioni. It works across languages: an Italian query finds English content and the other way round.

Where to search

The search palette

Press ⌘K (or Ctrl+K) on any page. Type, and results appear as you go.

You choose what it looks through — your documents, your value sets, or both — and Nocarta remembers the choice, so the palette opens the way you left it. You cannot turn both off; a search box that searches nothing is just a broken search box.

The assistant

Ask the assistant an open question — "what do I have about the Milan lease?" — and it uses the same search to offer you shortcuts to the right documents. How much it leans on your documents versus offering you places to go is a setting; see What the assistant suggests below.

Turning it on and off

Everything below lives in Settings → Search.

Search by meaning

On by default. Turn it off and Nocarta matches words only. Your content stays indexed, so turning it back on is instant — nothing has to be rebuilt.

What gets searched by meaning

Content	Default
Your notebooks	On
Your automations (name and description only)	On
Form templates — and the entries filled from them	Off, switch on per template
Value sets	Off, switch on per set

Anything you switch off is never indexed, and switching something off removes what was already indexed — it does not just stop future updates.

Searching finds nothing you couldn't already open. A template someone shared with you is not added to your search index — sharing lets you collaborate on something, it does not file it under your account. You can still find shared items by name. Your secrets are never indexed and never searched, in any tier.

How close a match has to be

Meaning-matching is a judgement, not a yes/no, so you decide how generous it should be:

Setting	What you get
Show me anything related	The widest results. Good when you have a small library and a loose match beats no match — some results will be only vaguely connected.
Balanced (recommended)	Filters out the vague matches, keeps everything genuinely related.
Only close matches	The narrowest results. Best once you have a lot of content, where a near-miss costs you more attention than a missed result.

What the assistant suggests

After each answer the assistant offers a few shortcuts. You choose whether those are places to go in the app, your own documents, or a mix. Every option is visible even if your plan does not include it, so you can see what is on offer before deciding to upgrade.

Value sets: finding entries by meaning

Value-set entries are switched on per set, on the set's own settings page, because it pays off very differently depending on the list.

Worth it for lists people describe rather than spell exactly — suppliers, products, categories. Someone searching "builder" finds "Rossi Costruzioni".
Not worth it for codes and postcodes, where searching the exact text already works perfectly and the lists are usually the biggest.

The panel shows how many entries are ready, and an Update now button for when you have just imported a batch. Preparing a large set takes a few minutes; you can keep working while it runs.

When search tells you it is limited

Search never errors out. If meaning-matching is unavailable, you still get results — matched by words — and Nocarta says so rather than quietly giving you less:

You see	It means
"Search by meaning is off"	You turned it off in Settings.
"Nothing is set up for meaning-based search yet"	Nothing has been switched on to be searchable.
"X of Y items can be found by meaning"	Still preparing. The rest match by words for now.
"Temporarily unavailable"	Our side. Nothing is lost and it resumes on its own.

Why a search found nothing

The content is not switched on. Form templates and value sets are off by default. Check Settings → Search.
It was just added. New content is prepared in the background; it is findable by name immediately and by meaning shortly after.
Your setting is too strict. Try "Show me anything related".
It belongs to someone else. Shared items are findable by name, not by meaning.

Privacy

Meaning-matching runs on Nocarta's own hardware. Your content is not sent to a third-party AI service to make it searchable.
The searchable copy of your form entries is encrypted at rest, with the same protection as the entries themselves.
Secrets are never indexed, in either tier.
You can delete the whole search index at any time from Settings → Search. Your content is untouched — only the index goes, and it rebuilds when you want it back.