Search for unfinished To Do items

[MJG 16]

Searching on todo:false brings up every note with a "to do" item I have not checked off.  So far so good. 

 

I can search EITHER in the specific context (the currently selected notebook or stack) or across ALL notes.

 

What I want to do, though, is search for open to do items in only two of my notebooks (allowing me to limit the search to work-related items and not bringing up personal shopping lists, books I want to read, etc.)

 

What is the proper syntax to get Evernote (desktop) to search for todo:false in EITHER notebookX OR notebookY but nowhere else? 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Searching on todo:false brings up every note with a "to do" item I have not checked off.  So far so good. 

 

I can search EITHER in the specific context (the currently selected notebook or stack) or across ALL notes.

 

What I want to do, though, is search for open to do items in only two of my notebooks (allowing me to limit the search to work-related items and not bringing up personal shopping lists, books I want to read, etc.)

 

What is the proper syntax to get Evernote (desktop) to search for todo:false in EITHER notebookX OR notebookY but nowhere else?

You would either need to tag the notes with the notebook name & include the tag in your search or (easier) put both notebooks in a single stack & use the stack qualifier in your search.

[jefito 5,589]

What is the proper syntax to get Evernote (desktop) to search for todo:false in EITHER notebookX OR notebookY but nowhere else?

This is a classic mixed AND/OR search query. Evernote does not support these types of queries in general, they're either all AND (by default) or OR (if you use the "any:" modifier). See the Evernote Search Grammar page, if you're interested.

There are a couple of ways to get mixed AND/OR searched in Evernote (both are limited to specific use cases, but you might be able to find these useful techniques anyway):

• By using wildcards, which can be applied to tag names or normal literal search terms (but not notebooks, unfortunately). The tag names or literal search terms must have a common unique prefix  -- some folks create their tag names with this sort of facility in mind.

Example: to find all todos in notes that are tagged with either "tag-A1" or "tag-A2", you could use a search like this: todo:false tag:tag-A*

• By using notebook stacks

Example: : to find all todos in notes that exist in one of the notebooks in stack "MyStack", you could use a search like this: stack:MyStack todo:false

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Not sure how practical this would be or if it adds anything to BurgersNFries response... but you could tag each of the notebooks (notes therein) with the same name as the notebook itself... and then search >>  any: tag-1, tag-2, tag-3 etc. 

 

On desktop, one is able to click and select multiple tags in the left panel... and then go to the search bar and type "Any:" after the string of selected tags... then set up a saved search if you want for mobile devices. 

 

You could also include (by manually selecting - Ctrl-click-click-click) tag-1, tag-2, tag-3 any: todo:false

This would return all notes containing unchecked items in multiple tag contexts. (If you manually typed out your search query, it would "look" more logical to include "any:" at the beginning... but it works either way)

 

That's if you don't want to move certain notebooks to a new stack for search purposes... or if you might need to search a different combination of notebooks now or in the future.

 

In fact, you could mirror all of your stacks and notebooks in a hierarchical tag setup (desktop) by giving all of your notebooks (notes therein) the same tag name... then, since you are already familiar with your stack and notebook order, you simply expand and search that specific tag hierarchy as if you were looking at your notebook list... and select whatever tags (notebooks) you need. That is if you had the time to spare... and if you rely heavily on searching a different set of multiple notebooks frequently. But still, this would only be a temporary solution... you'd have to occasionally re-tag the notes in all of those notebooks to make sure they are all up to speed.