Symptoms
You search for a word or phrase you're sure you wrote, and the note doesn't appear — on the main dashboard or inside a notebook.
Possible causes
- The transcription spells it differently. Search is literal: if the AI read "Karina" as "Katrina" — or you actually wrote a different word than you remember — no match. This is the most common cause.
- A filter is narrowing the view. Searching inside a notebook only searches that notebook; the star filter limits results to starred notes.
- You're in Ask mode. While an Ask answer is displayed, the note grid isn't a search-results view. Clear the question first.
- The page was never uploaded — it's still only in your physical notebook (it happens more than you'd think).
- You searched a date. Search reads titles and text, not date fields — "March 14" only matches if you wrote those words on the page.
How to fix
- Clear all scopes: leave the notebook, turn off the star filter, clear the search bar, then search again from the full dashboard.
- Try a different word from the same page — a rarer, more distinctive one you're confident about.
- Find the note another way — the calendar if you know roughly when you wrote it, or Ask, which searches by meaning and can find pages keyword search can't.
- When you find it, check the line with Live Highlights and correct the misread word. Search finds it forever after — your corrections permanently improve your archive.
When to contact support
If a word you can see in the note's transcription panel still doesn't match in search, that's a bug we want to know about: support@sanddune.ai with the note title and the search term.