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Bower’s search finds anything in your workspace — even if you don’t remember the exact words you used.

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How it works

Bower uses hybrid semantic search: a combination of keyword matching and vector embedding. In practice, this means:
  • Exact terms are found reliably — searching for “pH 8.1” returns notes that contain that value.
  • Meaning-based queries also work — “water alkalinity last Tuesday” will surface relevant notes even if those exact words don’t appear together in any note.
  • Scientific synonyms are handled — “sodium chloride” and “NaCl” return the same results.
Search covers everything in your workspace: voice transcripts, text extracted from photos, PDF extractions, imported documents, note content, and attachment metadata.
1

Open search

Press Cmd+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows/Linux), or click the search bar at the top of the desktop app.
2

Type your query

Use natural language or keywords.
3

Browse results

Results appear ranked by relevance, with the matching excerpt shown in context.
4

Open a result

Click any result to open the note.

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Tips for better results

  • Be specific about time — “field samples from February” narrows results more than “field samples.”
  • Use your own terminology — Bower learns from what you capture, so your specific shorthand and abbreviations become findable over time.
  • Search from Bird — for questions that need synthesis rather than retrieval, asking Bird directly is often more useful than a keyword search.

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What’s indexed

Everything captured or imported into Bower is indexed for search immediately — there’s no delay between capture and searchability. This includes the full text of transcripts, photo extractions, and document content, as well as titles, tags, and metadata.