Search
Permission-aware search across your indexed content, by meaning and by filename.
Status: Available · Last verified: 30 July 2026
How it works
Search matches on meaning, not just on the words you typed. Your query is embedded and compared against your indexed content with an access filter applied, then candidates are re-ranked by relevance, recency, and source diversity before you see them.
Filename matching runs alongside semantic matching, because sometimes you know exactly what a file is called:
| Match type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Exact filename | The name matches what you typed. Ranked highest. |
| Name subset | Your query is part of the filename, or the filename is part of your query. |
| Fuzzy filename | A deliberately conservative near-match, for typos and small differences. It will miss loose matches rather than flood your results with wrong files. |
Matched results are labeled so you can tell why something surfaced.
Filters
Narrow results by source, device, type, date, author, and format. Device matters once you have more than one paired Mac and want to know which machine a file is on.
Local and cloud results
If you have a paired Mac, the Mac popover searches your local index and your cloud-indexed content together and merges the results. The web app searches cloud-indexed content only – local-only folders appear in the popover and nowhere else.
On the Local tier, search is the local index plus what you have synced, since cloud connectors are not part of that tier.
Freshness
Indexed results are as current as the last sync for that source. Results from live connectors are current at the moment you searched, and are labeled as such. A document changed since its last sync can therefore appear with older text until the next sync runs.
Previews
Results show a title, a snippet, the source, and the modified date. Previews and thumbnails are constrained by the same access rules as the results themselves – Remly does not render a preview of something you are not entitled to open.
Permissions
Permission filtering applies to every query. Remly snapshots each item's access from the source at index time and filters by your access at query time.
Access changes in a source take effect in Remly on that source's next sync. Between a permission change at the provider and the next sync, results can reflect the older access snapshot.
Where to search
- Web – sign in at app.remly.it and open Search. Search requires an authenticated session; there is no public deep link into it.
- Mac popover – a global popover that searches local and cloud content together. Part of the Mac app, which is not publicly downloadable yet.
Limits
Search is subject to a nominal daily cap of 200 searches per day, enforced best-effort under concurrency, so the exact cutoff can vary slightly. See usage limits.
What Search does not do
Search returns documents. It does not write an answer. For that, use Ask.