Search captures by text, tag, color and type

The search box at the top of the gallery searches the whole library index. Press S (or ⇧⇥) to jump to it. Results update as you type. If you’re browsing a folder, collection or tag, search stays inside that view.

For an overview of why this matters, see Screenshot search.

Text search

Plain words are matched against these fields for every item:

Field	What it holds
File name	The name on disk
Recognized text	OCR text from images, and from sampled frames of videos
Annotation text	Text you typed into annotations
Transcript	Speech transcribed from recordings
Tags	Automatic and custom tags
Title	Page or video titles, and font names
Article text	The saved text of web articles

Each word is matched as a prefix, so invo finds invoice. If you type several words, an item has to match all of them. Quotes, *, parentheses, : and apostrophes are ignored, and a hyphen counts as a space.

Recognition and tagging run in the background on your Mac. A capture you just took may not match a text search until processing finishes.

To search by tag, type the tag, or click a tag in the details panel. Clicking a tag switches to All and searches for it.

Color search

A query that looks like a color searches the colors extracted from each image instead of text:

Form	Examples	Match tolerance
Hex	`#F87171`, `#F00`	±30 per channel
CSS functions (the `#` is optional)	`rgb(248, 113, 113)`, `rgb(248 113 113)`, `hsl(0, 91%, 71%)`, `rgba(…)`, `hsla(…)`	±30
Color name, with `#`	`#coral`, `#teal`, `#charcoal`	±50
Name with a modifier	`#darkblue`, `#lightpink`, `#palegreen`, `#brightred`, `#deeppurple`	±40–45
Plural	`#yellows`	same as the singular

Color names must start with #. Plain red is a text search. The app knows about a hundred names: basic colors (red, blue, gray/grey) and descriptive ones (mustard, sage, cobalt, burgundy, lavender, slate). The modifiers light, dark, bright, pale and deep shift a base name’s lightness or saturation.

Type filters

To show only one kind of item, type a filter on its own, ending with a colon:

Shows	Type any of
Images	`i:` `image:` `images:`
Videos	`v:` `video:` `videos:`
Animated images (GIF, WebP, APNG)	`vl:` `videoloop:` `gif:` `gifs:` `animated:`
Screen recordings	`sr:` `recording:` `recordings:` `screenrecording:`
Audio	`a:` `audio:`
Documents	`d:` `doc:` `docs:` `document:` `documents:`
PDFs	`pdf:`
Fonts	`f:` `font:` `fonts:`
Bookmarks	`b:` `bookmark:` `bookmarks:`
Slideshows	`sl:` `slideshow:` `slides:`
QR codes and barcodes	`qr:` `sc:` `scancode:` `qrcode:` `barcode:`, or `#qr` `#qrcode` `#barcode` `#scancode`

An agent searches the same way: the MCP library_find tool’s search action takes a query as you’d type it in the search bar, and a type to narrow it by kind. See the MCP overview.

What search covers

Hidden and Trash items are left out of search results.
In the captures gallery, bookmarks are left out unless you use b:.
When you search, items shared with you are included and marked with a badge. Without a search, All only shows items you own.