(Archived) search syntax for single letter

[ShardArt 1]

A large portion of my notes have one word titles that are names.  Almost 100% of the searches I need to perform on this large volume of notes is to find all the notes is alpha groupings so I need to limit the search to the first letter of the title.  That used to be very easy - just click on thet letter in the column that no longer exists!!!!!  I've serached and read a lot of articles on using the new more powerful search however I've yet to figure out the search syntax for what I need.

 

What is the syntax if I want to find all the notes that start with the letter B - is it possible?  Also are "and" or "and/or searches possible?   Ex.   Notes where the title begins with B and F.  For some searches I would also be able to search  using the first 2 letters of the title   is it possible to and what would I enter to find all the notes I need that start with  Ma  as an example.

 

It's probably something obvious but I'm at a loss and could use any help I can get on this.  Thanks

[gazumped 11,698]

Hi - it's a good job you use a one-word title for many of your notes in this situation - search for

intitle:b*

and you will get all the notes with titles containing words starting with 'b'. If you sort that result by title you'll group the ones starting with 'b' together.

However; there's no 'and' function. You can save your searches and use tags as well as searches, so search for the above and then tag all the notes starting with 'b' with that tag. Then search for intitle:f* and click (Ctrl-click?) the 'b' tag too...

[ShardArt 1]

Thanks - I probably need to explore and become better at using tags - this may give me the push I need to get started.

[AndyDent 102]

search for intitle:b* and you will get all the notes with titles containing words starting with 'b'. ... However; there's no 'and' function. 

 

There is no explicit and or or clause you can use to combine terms but there is a behaviour across the entire expression.

 

By default, there is an implicit and between the terms - notes are returned that match the combination of all terms.

intitle:a* intitle:b*

finds 919 notes in my collection

 

The any: term changes the behaviour of the expression so notes matching any of the terms are matched. It doesn't matter where in the search expression any: appears.

any: intitle:a* intitle:b*

Finds 5379 notes for me.

 

See the search grammar page for more specifics.