# Search in Bear - unintuitive or user error?

**URL:** <https://community.bear.app/t/search-in-bear-unintuitive-or-user-error/18033>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [August 11, 2025, 11:52am UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/search-in-bear-unintuitive-or-user-error/18033 "2025-08-11T11:52:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bearmacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@bearmacho](https://community.bear.app/u/bearmacho)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 11:52am UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/search-in-bear-unintuitive-or-user-error/18033/1 "2025-08-11T11:52:38Z")

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I recently migrated from Obsidian and Apple Notes to bring everything into bear and I’m enjoying the experience.

However, searching for specific notes is a confusing experience and I sense it’s probably user error but I wanted to be sure.

Within my notes, I know I have a note that says AI and Liverpool and cheese, for example. So I type in those terms.

However, when I type that in, it brings back every single note that has AI **or** Liverpool **or** cheese. Even when I try and use Boolean operators and quotes to pull back the specific note, I still get back a lot of stuff that isn’t relevant to me.

Is there a clear guide on how to use search within bear? As I suspect, it’s probably me but I wanted to be clear whether there are limitations around search in the app.

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**Author:** ![Gardriel](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/gardriel/32/4955_2.png) [@Gardriel](https://community.bear.app/u/Gardriel)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 3:05pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/search-in-bear-unintuitive-or-user-error/18033/2 "2025-08-11T15:05:06Z")

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There is quite of a steep learning curve for the search, but its fast and versatile.

> **[Bear](https://bear.app/faq/how-to-search-notes-in-bear/)**
>
> Learn how to use Bear’s search tools including advanced options and filters. Search for specific phrases, exclude keywords, set a time frame, and more.

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**Author:** ![trix180](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/trix180/32/588_2.png) [@trix180](https://community.bear.app/u/trix180)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2025, 4:07pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/search-in-bear-unintuitive-or-user-error/18033/3 "2025-08-12T16:07:47Z")

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> [@bearmacho](#):
>
> it brings back every single note that has AI **or** Liverpool **or** cheese.

Unless you use the `OR`operator in the search field, all the arguments are searched using the logic AND.

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**Author:** ![krssno](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.bear.app/krssno/32/1338_2.png) [@krssno](https://community.bear.app/u/krssno)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 5:02pm UTC](https://community.bear.app/t/search-in-bear-unintuitive-or-user-error/18033/4 "2025-08-13T17:02:44Z")

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Can it be that you look at the yellow underlined results in the notes list and see one or the other search term? But only the first result is displayed there due to lack of space. This may be causing your confusion