first-search.md

Your first search in 5 minutes

This tutorial takes you from a fresh install to your first successful search. By the end, you'll have SearchBox set up, your Documents folder indexed, and you'll have seen the two things that make SearchBox feel a little like magic: finding files by the words inside them, and finding them even when you misspell the search.

🔒 Everything in this tutorial happens on your own computer. SearchBox doesn't send your files, your searches, or anything else anywhere.

Step 1: Install SearchBox

1. Install SearchBox and open it. The full walkthrough is in Getting started — on Windows it's a normal installer, and when it finishes SearchBox opens in its own window.

Step 2: Create your account

The first time SearchBox opens, it asks you to create an account. This account exists only on your computer — it's how SearchBox protects your data from anyone else who uses the machine.

1. On the Welcome to SearchBox screen, type an email address in the Email box. (It's used as your login name — no email is ever sent to it.)
2. Optionally, type your name in the Name (optional) box.
3. Type a password in the Password box, and the same one again in Confirm Password.
4. Click Create Account.

Step 3: Save your recovery key

Right after your account is created, SearchBox shows a window titled Save Your Recovery Key. This key is a long code that can reset your password if you ever forget it.

1. Click Download Recovery Key and let it save the file.
2. Move that file somewhere safe outside this computer if you can — a USB stick, a password manager, or a printed copy in a drawer.
3. Close the window.

⚠️ This is the only time SearchBox shows you this key, and it is the only way to reset a lost password. Without it, files stored in your encrypted vault cannot be recovered. Take the extra minute now.

Step 4: Go to the search page

After setup, you land on the Settings page.

1. Click Back to Search in the top-left corner. You'll see the SearchBox logo with a big search box under it.

Step 5: Index your Documents folder

Right now SearchBox knows about none of your files. Let's introduce it to your Documents folder. "Indexing" means SearchBox reads each file once and builds a private catalog of the words inside — that catalog is what makes searches instant later.

1. Click the round upload button — the arrow pointing up in the corner of the screen. A window titled Manage Documents opens.
2. Click the Index Folder tab.
3. Click Browse and pick your Documents folder (usually C:\Users\<your name>\Documents). On Linux or Docker there's no Browse dialog — click into the path box and type the folder path instead.
4. Click the Index Folder button below the path.

💡 Tip: Your files stay exactly where they are — indexing doesn't move, copy, or change anything. SearchBox only reads them.

Step 6: Watch it work

1. Keep an eye on the status line under the button. It changes from Scanning files... to a running count like Indexing: 34/120 files (28%), and finishes with Done! and a summary of how many files were indexed.
2. Notice the bell icon — it now shows a badge. Click it and you'll find a Folder Indexed notification confirming the job finished.
3. Close the Manage Documents window.

A folder with a few hundred documents usually takes under a minute. Bigger folders take longer — you can close the window and keep using SearchBox while it works.

Step 7: Search for a word inside a file

Here's the important part. Don't search for a file's name — search for a word you know is written inside one of your documents. A person's name in a letter, a project name in a report, a street address in a lease.

1. Click into the big search box (it says Search your documents...).
2. Type your word — for example, the name of someone you've written to.
3. Press Enter (or click Search Documents).

SearchBox lists every document containing that word, with a snippet of the surrounding text so you can tell which one you want.

Step 8: Open a result

1. Click any result. The document opens in SearchBox's built-in viewer, so you can read it right there — no hunting through folders.
2. Click the SearchBox logo at the top to go back to your results.

Step 9: Misspell it on purpose

Now try to break it.

1. Search the same word again, but with a typo — swap two letters, like invocie instead of invoice.
2. Press Enter.

The same results come back. SearchBox's search engine is typo-tolerant, so close-enough spelling still finds the right documents. This matters more than it sounds: half of "lost" files are lost to a misremembered spelling.

Step 10: Try your first filter

One last trick. You can narrow a search to one kind of file by adding a filter after your word.

1. In the search box, type your word followed by ::pdf — for example, budget::pdf.
2. Notice the search box border turn green — that's SearchBox telling you the filter is written correctly. (Orange means you're mid-way through typing a filter; red means there's a mistake in it.)
3. Press Enter. Now only PDF files show up.

There are filters for other file types too (::docx, ::txt, ::md, ::image, and more), and ways to combine them — the full list is in Searching.

That's it

You've set up SearchBox, indexed a folder, and searched by content instead of filenames. From here you might want to:

• Index more folders — same steps, any folder you like.
• Learn the full search syntax in Searching.
• Put sensitive files in the encrypted vault.

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