How to Edit Saved Searches and Get a Real Count of Found

[evernoodle 5]

Hello, I am a new user of version 10.x just upgraded from legacy, so forgive the ignorance.

In my legacy 6.x Windows application I used many saved named editable searches. They were my "templates", which I edited and re-ran as needed by modifying the operators values. 

I have upgraded to 10.71.2 today. When I try now to "Edit saved search" it only has a field search NAME, and that is all I can edit. It does not show the command that was behind the search. Does anyone know how to edit the saved searches? 

When my saved search finds a large number of notes it shows "1000+ notes found" at the top next to the search options / filters. Who needs this "approximate" count? It makes it hard to reconcile my conversion of legacy notes. In legacy version the count of found notes was always precise. Is this a change of functionality or is there is a way to configure the result to be a true number? 

Thank you.

[gazumped 12,076]

Hi.  Wlecome to the forums.  Always good to know what exact versions of Evernote and Windows you're using and whether it's the installed app or browser version. 

Also - I'm not sure I understand the question;  but I'm a while from using v6.x,  so please forgive me.  v10 relies (I think) more on Shortcuts than actual saved searches - a shortcut can be a drag-n-dropped notebook or note,  a search,  or whatever.  I've never (AFAIK) needed or wanted to change the parameters of a search,  and didn't (in my v6 days) realise they were that editable.  Editing a search (I think) now means creating a new saved search with slightly different content.

Tools > Settings > Sidebar should allow you to set note counts visible,  which will apply to any heading in the sidebar.  If your search finds more than 1,000 notes it won't currently show a total - nobody else (so far) has considered that important - we're usually more about getting down to 10 or less...

Perhaps if you can explain in a little more detail how and why you edit existing saved searches,  we can offer some more suggestions and information.

 

[evernoodle 5]

Thank you gazumped, I have used legacy Windows 6.25.1.9091 client before upgrading to Windows 10.71.2 client.
Here is an example of a simplified command search I used in legacy: "created:20200101 -created:20201231" to find notes I have created in year 2021. As these time frames change you can see how one would want to edit the variables like 20200101 etc. Searches can be more complex with many options variables, and I prefer not create them every time from scratch. Editable saved search allowed me to do that quickly, just helps wit productivity. Not sure why it was removed in 10.71.2.

Finding notes in some workflows is not just about getting selected few. It can be about keeping track of large volumes and reconciling massive changes. Legacy did not discriminate against large numbers for a reason. It takes the same logic counting to 10 as counting to 1001(1000+), so why economize? It actually adds to development man-hours for a "greater than" condition to replace the result of a counter with a special message like "1000+ notes found". 

Evernote giveth and Evernote taketh away.

 

[Mike P 2,982]

4 hours ago, evernoodle said:

Here is an example of a simplified command search I used in legacy: "created:20200101 -created:20201231" to find notes I have created in year 2021. As these time frames change you can see how one would want to edit the variables like 20200101 etc. Searches can be more complex with many options variables, and I prefer not create them every time from scratch. Editable saved search allowed me to do that quickly, just helps wit productivity. Not sure why it was removed in 10.71.2.

As @gazumped has already said you can't edit a saved search (other than changing it's name). You can however run a saved search, edit it and then resave it with a new name.

One of the complexities is that EN will sometimes "interpret" advanced search syntax into the more graphical way of looking at things. So for example if I run the search

tag:+dashboard updated:day-7

and save it, when I run the saved search I get:

 

It's still editable though and it is easy enough to delete the blue lozenge tag if no longer needed.

Two other points that might be of interest

I almost never save searches with hard wired dates in. I find it much more useful to use relative dates (as above)

I also find that unless you make them shortcuts, saved searches are difficult to find and use. I also often like to have saved searches within a document. I therefore save the advanced search syntax string and have an AutoHotKey script that copies the string into the search box. That way I can lay out saved searches in a much easier to use (for me) way

[evernoodle 5]

Mike P, thank you for sharing your search routines. In trying to follow them I learned something new. E.g., the "contains:" will be an addition to my search tools in v10.

I too have my often used searches in a note I have made into a shortcut for easy access, although I never used the AutoHotKey scripting, not sure how easy that would be comparing to just copying and pasting the string in the search box.

You are right, the saved searches in v10 are harder to find. They live in a dropdown part of the search window fitting only only a handful of searches. As users save more (modified) searches the scrolling will be even longer.     

Any thoughts on an easy way of getting a search to show a total when more than 1000 notes were found?

Thank you.

[Mike P 2,982]

11 hours ago, evernoodle said:

Any thoughts on an easy way of getting a search to show a total when more than 1000 notes were found?

I don't think there is an easy way. You would need to break it down and then add up the totals. You could do that by date or If you could find some other parameter like a tag you could add the tag to the search and then do another search excluding the tag and add the two. 

I would definitely be asking myself why I needed the total and whether there might be a completely different approach that would also work.

[Mike P 2,982]

On 1/13/2024 at 8:10 PM, evernoodle said:

E.g., the "contains:" will be an addition to my search tools in v10.

"contains: " pretty much mirrors the corresponding section in the filter menu. A "complete" list is at the bottom of this page: https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313828. I also discovered a couple of others that aren't documented. See 

 

 

[John in Michigan USA 140]

On 1/13/2024 at 4:01 AM, Mike P said:

{table you made}

@Mike P Currently there's only note with no meta data. It matches the search

-tag:*

but not your suggestion of

-tag:+*

Win 11, EN 10.72.2 Editor v176.50.2 Service v1.88.1

 

[Mike P 2,982]

1 hour ago, John in Michigan USA said:

@Mike P Currently there's only note with no meta data. It matches the search

-tag:*

but not your suggestion of

-tag:+*

Win 11, EN 10.72.2 Editor v176.50.2 Service v1.88.1

 

All my meta data tags begin with the + character. 

-tag:+*

Finds all notes which do not contain a tag beginning with +

A tag namng convention like this allows a quick way of finding notes that contain (or don't contain) a particular group of tags. You can also find notes using "include sub-tags" but that doesn't allow you to negate the search.