Search is maddening and seems to be getting worse. Search in January could find the whole phrase “2fa off” (without quotes) by using “2fa+off” (without quotes). Now the + is not working and some folks are saying it needs to be “>+2fa +off” (without quotes) but this returns records with “2fa” in one field and “off” in another field. How do I search for the exact phrase “2fa off”, so that it only returns “2fa” followed by a space followed by “off”?
Also search adds the “behind the scenes” leading and trailing wildcard asterisk in all fields except the Notes field.
I´m pretty dissapointed about search feaures. Like most users, we migrate from KeePass to BW and we need to use a lot of workarounds to improve search, permissions, etc. We have more or less 400 entries in our database. With Keepass you search for term with implicit wilcards and implicit AND but in keepass if you search for a term and add a second word in the query your result would have more item than search for one result. So if you need to search for name you are force to specify field. Also if you use custom fields you can search for the existence of the name field but not for his value (is ridiculous to me).
Is a very good tool for day to day operations but search is not user friendly and you finally run two or three queries to find what your looking for (or die manually searching through collections an items)
Unless you are using a mobile app, the search will pick up both the name and the value of custom fields (although it does not use implicit wildcards when searching custom fields, so you need to search for the exact name or value, or add your own explicit wildcards).
But is an OR not AND. So you can´t refine your search based on a custom field. According to this Search your Vault | Bitwarden Help Center you can search for a fieldname with >fields:FieldName but no value. Also if you want to find an item with only two words (AND) you need to do >name:firstword +name:secondword. Is a waste of time.
I’m not arguing that the search interface can’t be improved but I want to set straight the record, as your posts contain some inaccuracies:
You can search for a custom field value using >fields:FieldValue, or just plain FieldValue.
The default search behavior does refine in the sense that a search for term1 term2 shows the items that contain both terms at the top of the search list, and only then shows results that include either term1orterm2.
You can refine a search based on a custom field value using >Term1 +fields:FieldValue or >+Term1 +fields:FieldValue (the latter excludes items that only contain FieldValue but not Term1, whereas the former demotes such items tot he bottom of the search list).
Agreed, bitwarden has a lot of good and flexible search capabilities. It does require some familiarization, perhaps not as intuitive as other search interfaces.
Change search so it use logical AND, so if I type pavel gmail it should filter all entries which have gmail and pavel in it. This is how trezor password manager works and it’s great but discontinued.
Thanks for the feedback! It will return those results, it just puts them at the top of the list and then shows additional search results after, like a search engine.
I’m a developer. But I can’t agree with what Bitwarden do to their search function.
I wish it could be better, just a regular search without remembering any syntax would be the best.
But if anyone looking for a solution, try 1Password. It comes with a price, but it’s worth it.
I’m running into the same problem as everyone else in this thread - the search is uninuitive and too complicated. The expectation with search is that entering 2 words will start an AND search and putting quotes around a search phrase should do an exact match search for that phrase. We’ve been conditioned to expect this as this is how just about every other search feature across the internet works. Nobody wants to learn a whole new way of searching using operators for something that should be simple.
Also, searching for >+citibank +login only searches the entry’s Name field (i.e. if you’ve named the entry “Citibank Login” it’ll find it, but if you’ve named your entry “Bank Login” it won’t find it, even though “citibank” is in the URL). This is unintuitive as searching for just one word DOES search across all of the fields of the entries (i.e. searching for just “Citibank” will return entries with “citibank” in the URL). This is probably why some people are saying this type of search works and others say it doesn’t.
There are so many inconsistencies in how this search works that it just comes across as feeling really kludgy and unreliable.
I suspect you may not like this response but I need to correct the record on the following statement in your comment:
Full-text searches will search all of the following fields: shortid , organizationid , name , subtitle , notes , fields , attachments , login.username , and login.uris.
The problem you experienced is because the advanced search (> prefix) does not automatically use wildcards at the start and end of each search term. Thus, to find citibank within the URL www.citibank.com, you would need to specify the search term as *citibank*. So your advanced search should have looked like this:
Thank you! That does work! Not to come across as ungrateful, but it really shouldn’t be this difficult. I’ve worked in web development for 25+ years and should have been able to figure this out on my own. I can guarantee that the rest of my staff will not go to this effort.
My understanding of the issue is that to ensure cross-platform compatibility of the Bitwarden browser extensions and Desktop apps, they must use a search engine written in JavaScript and interoperable with Node.js. They have chosen to use the Lunr.js package, so most of the complaints about UX issues in Bitwraden’s search function should be directed at the Lunr devs, not Bitwarden.
That being said, there is no reason why the choice of search engine used by Bitwarden should not be revisited.
Yes, please consider implementing an option for an default AND search without additional characters.
I switched from 1Password 6 a few days ago (from 2016) and the search is so intuitive there. If I enter the same search terms in Bitwarden (macOS App), the result I’m looking for comes up in 27th place because of the OR linking of the word.
Hi I just wanted to also contribute to this topic and also express the wish to have options for changing the default search behaviour or, for me the best alternative, that bitwarden switches to another search engine that uses AND search by default.
The company I am working for, is switching to bitwarden, team by team and we have all the same issues that where mentioned multiple times in this thread.
Tech folks may be okay with an complex search engine and using special operational charakters but regular folks are definitly not. We migrate with multiple password databases that contain several thousands of entries and are at a point where we basically have to rewrite all password entries in order to be able to find it with the lunr search. And I don’t even know how, yet.
I would also like to express the strong wish for the AND search as default. That would ease soo many things about the usability of bitwarden.
And please don’t get me wrong; For my personal use of bitwarden which is years long, bitwarden is just fine but in the context of professional use, lunr won’t get bitwarden anywhere, I feel.
It’s funny that every password manager has a basic flaw like this, only in different areas. If I type “admin” and “company1” I want to find all occurrences containing BOTH of the search terms. Why on earth would I want to find all admin users and all company1 items with that search term? And yes I know that there’s full text search, but it’s simply too complicated for such a basic thing. And yes, all other password managers I tried use AND condition instead of OR.