Find in current tab
Press Cmd+F (Mac) or Ctrl+F (Windows/Linux) to open the find bar in your current tab.Basic search
Type your search term and press Enter or click the arrows to navigate between matches:- Up arrow / Shift+Enter: Previous match
- Down arrow / Enter: Next match
- Esc: Close find bar
Search options
Toggle these options for more control:Find and replace
Click the expand arrow to show the replace field:- Enter search term in the first field
- Enter replacement text in the second field
- Click Replace to replace current match
- Click Replace All to replace all matches
Find in chat
When the chat panel is focused, Cmd/Ctrl+F searches chat history instead of the document. The same options (case, word, regex) apply. Chat search also offers a collapsed content toggle to include text that’s normally hidden behind collapsed sections — the agent’s chain-of-thought (reasoning), command output, and web-search results. It’s off by default; enabling it expands that content while find is open so it’s matched alongside the rest of the conversation.Search across files
The Search sidebar searches all files in your workspace. Open it from the activity bar (magnifying glass icon).Searching files requires a folder to be open. Searching previous chats works
even when no folder is open, since chats are not tied to a workspace.
Running a search
- Enter your search term
- Results appear as you type (with a brief debounce)
- Click a result to open the file at that location
- Content matches: Lines containing your search term
- File matches: Files whose names match
- Folder matches: Directories whose names match
- Chat matches: Previous chats whose title or messages contain your search term
Searching previous chats
The Search sidebar also searches across your previous chats. A chat appears in the Chats section when your search term matches its title or any of its messages. Each result shows the matching message snippets (labeled You or Agent). Click the chat title to open the conversation, or click a snippet to open it and jump straight to that message, which is briefly highlighted. Only the messages you actually see — your own messages and the agent’s replies — are searched, never the agent’s internal/model-only history. The search options below (case, whole word, regex) apply to chat search too.Searching previous chats is available when working locally. When connected to a
remote workspace, the Chats section stays empty.
In notebooks, content search matches exactly what in-notebook find (Cmd/Ctrl+F)
sees: cell source and outputs as the notebook renders them. Text that isn’t
displayed — base64-encoded binary data, hidden text fallbacks of rich outputs
like charts and HTML tables, and progress-bar text that was overwritten in
place — is not searched. Markdown and LaTeX outputs are searched as their
underlying source, the same way markdown cells are. Clicking a notebook result
jumps to that match in the notebook.
Search options
Replace across files
- Toggle the replace field
- Enter replacement text
- Click Replace All
- Number of matches
- Number of files affected
- Files on disk are updated
- Open editors are updated in memory
- Files currently being edited by AI are excluded
Performance
Workspace search uses ripgrep for speed. It can search large codebases quickly, but results are capped to keep the interface responsive. If your search matches thousands of files, you’ll see a truncation notice.Search in context
Notebooks
Find searches across all cells in the notebook — code cells, markdown cells, and outputs.Writeups
Find searches the document content including headings, paragraphs, and code blocks.Chat
Find searches the visible chat history including your messages and AI responses.Keyboard shortcuts
Qualia uses Cmd/Ctrl+F for in-tab find, not Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+F (which some editors use for “find in files”). The Search sidebar is the way to search across files.