Pick documents with natural language
Describe what you want, get matching documents, then add / keep only / remove / replace against your selection.
When your workspace has more than a handful of documents, picking the right working set by hand stops being practical. Smart Search lets you describe what you want in plain English and applies the result to your selection.
Open Smart Search
On the documents page, click the AI Search button next to "Select all". A modal opens with a single textarea. Type what you want: a topic, a property, a description.
Examples that work well:
- "contracts with renewal terms longer than one year"
- "documents about Q3 sales performance"
- "files that mention employee onboarding"
- "NDAs signed before 2024"
- "reports that include financial projections"
You have up to 300 characters per query. Specific descriptions beat generic ones.
The four apply modes
Smart Search returns a set of matching documents. You then choose how to apply that set against your current selection:
| Mode | What it does | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Add | Union: adds matches to your current selection | Layering more documents onto a working set |
| Keep only matches | Intersection: keeps only documents that were already selected and match | Narrowing a working set with a new criterion |
| Remove | Subtraction: removes matches from your current selection | Pruning the set |
| Replace | Substitution: discards your current selection and uses the matches | Starting fresh from a description |
Stack searches to build a working set
The four-mode pattern is what makes Smart Search composable. Run several searches in sequence to build the precise set you want:
-
1
Replace: "contracts signed in 2024" to start fresh.
-
2
Keep only matches: "with auto-renewal clauses" to narrow.
-
3
Add: "the master services agreement template" to bolt on related documents.
-
4
Open a Focus or run a workflow on the final selection.
Each search runs against your full workspace; the apply step is what touches your selection.
Smart Search vs the page filters
These two narrow different things:
- Page filters narrow what's displayed. Filters don't touch your selection.
- Smart Search narrows your selection. The list still shows everything.
Use filters to scan; use Smart Search to pick.
What it isn't
- Not a full-text search inside document content; that's the semantic search the chat uses during a Focus.
- Not a saved view; the resulting selection is per-session and resets when you leave the page.
- Not stackable with the page filters in a "compound query" sense. They're independent.
What's next
- Combine sources into a dataset: turn a Smart Search selection into a dataset.
- Three ways to chat: open Focus on the selection you built.
- When to run a workflow: run the same task across the matched set.