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Search & Archive

Section titled “Search”

ThoughtFree provides full-text search across all your thoughts.

Section titled “How to Search”

Type in the search bar at the top of the Inbox or Archive view. Results appear as you type (for queries of 3+ characters).

Search looks through:

  • Thought content (the text you wrote)
  • Categories and tags
  • Metadata (dates, etc.)

Results are ranked by relevance.

Section titled “Offline Search”

When you’re offline, search falls back to your local database (IndexedDB). It searches across all thoughts stored on your device. When you reconnect, server-side search is used again for better accuracy and coverage.

Archive

Section titled “Archive”

The Archive stores thoughts you’ve finished with but want to keep. Archiving is ThoughtFree’s way of saying “I’m done with this, but I might need it later.”

Archiving Thoughts

Section titled “Archiving Thoughts”
  • Single thought: Open the thought menu → “Archive”
  • Bulk archive: Select multiple thoughts → tap “Archive”
  • Auto-archive: Completed tasks on the Today view are automatically cleaned up

Browsing the Archive

Section titled “Browsing the Archive”

Go to the Archive view to browse:

  • Search — dedicated search bar for archived thoughts
  • Category filter — filter by category chips
  • Tag filter — narrow by tags
  • Pagination — results load 50 at a time

Restoring from Archive

Section titled “Restoring from Archive”

Open any archived thought and select “Restore to Inbox” to bring it back to your active thoughts.

Exporting from Archive

Section titled “Exporting from Archive”

You can export archived thoughts:

  • Export all — download everything in JSON or CSV
  • Export filtered — export only the current filtered view
  • Per-thought — export individual thoughts

See Export Options for format details.