History and Search

History and Search

History contains clips that have not been moved to Trash. Trash remains separate so “everything you kept” and “everything you discarded” do not become the same list.

Pasted captures bounded representations of:

• plain and rich text;
• clipboard images and screenshots;
• copied image, text, media, PDF, and other file references;
• multiple files in their original selection order.

Search

Search is its own persistent collection. Leaving Search does not erase the query, and returning restores the results.

Search waits 1000 milliseconds after the last edit before running. Each successful settled search is added to Settings → Search History. Repeated requests are combined while retaining their latest result count, last-used time, and use count. Saved searches include explicit Clip Type, Content Type, File Format, Source, Clip ID, and Trash filters, so searches created by the CLI remain portable to the app whenever the query grammar can represent them exactly.

History, Trash, Search, Bins, and the HUD use bounded pages rather than loading the complete library. Exact collection counts remain visible, older results load incrementally, and offscreen rows are virtualized. Returning to a collection restores its scroll position without requiring a full-library scan.

Clip Search under Settings → Functionality controls the app search surface and the explicit pasted search command. Both the Simple and Full presets enable it. Disabling it does not remove search data or stop background indexing, and internal collection queries remain available.

Supported helpers include:

• id: — one or more comma-separated clip IDs;
• clip: — structural Clip Type;
• content: — current Content Type;
• format: — verified File Format;
• source: — capture source;
• has:note — clips with notes;
• has:name or is:named — clips with names;
• is:pinned — pinned clips;
• is:protected — protected clips;
• is:trashed — clips in Trash;
• regex: — regular expression search.

Clip Type, Content Type, File Format, and Source filters match partial values case-insensitively. For example, source:code matches “VS Code” and format:pd matches PDF. The helpers follow their corresponding Functionality settings, and a disabled axis suspends its filters. An incomplete helper such as source: is treated as incomplete rather than “match everything.” Arrow keys navigate authoritative, paginated results from the local library, including clips older than the History page currently loaded in the app. Esc closes the helper menu; on an empty search it returns to the previous collection.

OCR text and stored transcripts participate in ordinary text search without replacing the original image or file references, including when is:trashed searches Trash. Extracted text is used for matching but is never added to Search result payloads.

Settings → Analysis → Index reports coverage for captured clip fields and extracted text. Its rebuild actions repair derived search data without rerunning OCR, Transcriptions, or other Extractors.

Trashed search results are marked and remain chronologically commingled with active results so a Trash action does not reorder the whole result set.

Names, notes, Visual Labels, OCR text, transcripts, and other current Extractor results participate in ordinary text search. Names and notes keep their own collections, while Visual Labels can also be targeted by Smart Bin rules. Editing Visual Labels creates a recoverable Clip Version when Revision History is enabled; the original image is never replaced.

Retention

History, Trash, Activity History, and Search History have independent limits under Settings → General. A clip that exceeds either enabled History limit moves to Trash (or is purged when Trash is disabled). Trash purges its oldest eligible items when either Trash limit is exceeded, and Activity History removes its oldest entries by the same rule. Search History removes searches that have not been used within its age limit, then removes the least recently used searches above its count limit. Search History defaults to 100 entries kept forever. A zero count means Unlimited, and a zero age means Forever. Pinned and protected clips are excluded from History retention, and protected clips are never auto-purged from Trash. Hard resource ceilings remain in force even when a user-facing limit is permissive.

Search queries can contain sensitive text. They remain local, are included in Full Backups, are excluded from the portable History and Organization transfer, and are never copied into Activity records. Disabling Clip Search stops new recording and hides Search History without deleting existing entries. Re-enable Clip Search to review or clear them.