Part 5: Find Notes With the Command Bar

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Once you reached a critical number of notes it becomes gradually harder to find anything in the sidebar. That’s where the command bar will help you without having to use your mouse. 

Find Notes Quickly

Hit  CMD+J to open the Command Bar and start typing the name of the note you are looking for. You will see search results appearing immediately without having to wait. (NotePlan has indexed all your notes.)

The Command Bar also returns partial results, so you don’t have to remember the exact name of the note and can have typos:

Hit enter to open the first note in the search results (or navigate with the arrow keys). 

If you don’t enter any text, it will display the recently edited notes. This is practical if you have a project note you update very often. Then you don’t need to search for it.

Tip: You can make it easier to find something when you are creating many small notes using very descriptive names instead of very few big notes with generic names. 

🍿 Watch: 5 ways to retrieve your notes

Open Specific Dates

Besides searching project notes, you can also jump to specific dates using the Command Bar. Type any date in natural language, like  “2nd March 2021” or “2021-03-02” or even “tomorrow”, “next week”, “friday”, etc. and select the date from the results:

Tip: This is especially useful if you want to open a date far in the past or future. Instead of  clicking through the months, just type it out here.

Add Tasks

There is also a quick way to add a new task without having to open the Daily Notes, so you don't have to close the current note you are viewing. 

Type the task name and append a date, for instance  "Buy milk tomorrow".

Select the first option and it will add the task at the top of the Daily Note you defined in the text. In this example  “tomorrow”. 

Global Shortcut

The Command Bar also works with NotePlan running in the background. While you read something on a website you can add a task without having to switch the window using the global shortcut:  CMD+Control+J.

It's your turn

Hit  CMD+J and start searching for a note.

In the next email you will learn how to find and filter tasks spread across different notes. 

Pro Tips

  • Find tags by typing # or @ and then the full or partial name of the tag.
  • Use CMD+T to jump to today without using the Command Bar from anywhere.
  • Change the global shortcut if it’s conflicting with existing shortcuts in the preferences.

Next up: → Part 6: Search & Review

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