Chapter 3. Search

Table of Contents
3.1. Simple search
3.2. Complex/advanced search
3.3. Document history
3.4. Result list sorting
3.5. Search tips, shortcuts
3.6. Customising the search interface

The recoll program provides the user interface for searching. It is based on the QT library.

3.1. Simple search

Start the recoll program, then enter search term(s) in the text field at the top left of the window. Clicking the Search button or hitting the Enter key will start a search. By default, this will look for documents with any of the terms (the ones with more terms will get better scores). You can check the All terms checkbox to ensure that only documents with all the terms will be returned. Use the Tools / Advanced search dialog for more complex searches.

After starting a search, a list of results will instantly be displayed in the main list window. Clicking on an entry will open an internal preview window for the document. Double-clicking will attempt to start an external viewer (have a look at the ~/.recoll/mimeconf file to see how these are configured).

By default, the document list is presented in order of relevance (how well the system estimates that the document matches the query). You can specify a different ordering by using the Tools / Sort parameters dialog.