“Find” on MacOS is vestigial and broken
-
I’ve accumulated 48 entries in my (currently free plan) Day One journal, using macOS version 2026.10 (1753). I’m considering a new use, and a big feature I’d need is the ability to select all entries with a given string. Unfortunately, the “Find” feature is (as stated above) is vestigial and broken.
The standard “Edit/Find/Find…” entry is there, but it’s only enabled when a single entry is open and being edited, and searches within that entry. Useless for cross-entry searches.
There is a 🔍 icon, and opening it lets you search across all entries. However, it’s seriously broken, and searches often fail for strange reasons. Examples:
- A half dozen entries have the word “skin” in them, but searching with “skin” using the 🔍 icon only identifies one.
- I created a new item containing “skin”, and it also wasn’t found. I deleted it and tried again, and the now-deleted entry is now found by 🔍 ing for “skin”.
- I permanently deleted that new entry, and it is still found by 🔍 ing for “skin,” although it can’t be opened.
- All this while, there are several other entries containing “skin” that aren’t selected when using the 🔍 icon.
- I tried searching for “scalp” which was also in several entries: nothing came up. I duplicated one of the “scalp” entries, and the duplicated entry can now be found with “scalp”.
- I deleted the duplicated entry. Now, searching for “scalp” shows both the entry I’d duplicated and its duplicate.
- I opened, edited and saved another old entry containing “scalp”; now it is also found in a “scalp” search.
- I created a new entry with “BP test baby” in it. It’s visible in the timeline, but seaching for “BP” doesn’t show it.
- I deleted the “BP test baby” entry, and bingo: it can be search. I restored it: still can be searched. I then added the word “wrong” at the end of it and closed it. Searching for “wrong” doesn’t show the entry. Searching for “BP” shows the entry, but the preview in the 🔍 window doesn’t include the word “wrong”. But, if I apply “BP” as a filter, the filtered timeline’s preview shows the word “wrong.”
It sounds like the app uses a word index for searches, but the index is only occasionally updated. Of course, this is confusing and annoying.
Suggestions:
- Have the search index be edited whenever an item is created or changed
- Have a way to explicitly update the search index
- If no entry is open, have the “Edit/Find/Find…” menu item and shortcut open the 🔍 search window
- Have a way of viewing trashed entries (currently the only method is the 🔍 icon, and that depends on hitting on a word in the trashed entry)
- Have a way of permanently emptying the trash
Thanks,
Dan
-
There are two kinds of search/find. The first is to find instances of a word within the current journal entry. That is what the Edit > Find > Find menu command is for and it sounds like that is working in your case.
The second kind is to find all of the journal entries that have one or more instances of a word. This find process is triggered by the magnifying glass button (such as above the Timeline view). From your description, it sounds like this find is not working as should be expected. I tried this find on my test data and it produced the results I expected. That suggests to me that the functionality is working, but that there might be some abnormality in your database that prevents a successful search that finds entries that you know are in the journal.
One thing I might suggest is rebuilding the search index. There’s an article on this in the Day One online guides. This article both explains some of the circumstances that could cause a search index to become corrupt or uncooperative. Experiencing a crash while Day One is writing data to the database could be one such culprit.
What does “Rebuild Index” do? (iOS and macOS)
(Despite what the URL says, the article includes information on macOS, and not just iOS. It might have once only had information for iOS, but was since updated to include macOS.)
Aside from that, try this sequence.
- Display the Timeline view.
- Choose All Entries at the top of the journals list.
- Click the search button and enter are valid search criterium, such as “scalp”
- In the resulting menu-based list of results, do you see entries you expect?
- Press Enter.
- This should cause the search results to replace the contents of the Timeline view with just the journal entries identified by the search.
Does this return a result set that is what you were expecting?
-
Thanks: rebuilding the index seems to have fixed things.
That said, my other suggestions stand:
- If no entry is open, have the “Edit/Find/Find…” menu item and shortcut open the 🔍 search window
- Have a way of viewing trashed entries (currently the only method is the 🔍 icon, and that depends on hitting on a word in the trashed entry)
- Have a way of permanently emptying (all entries in) the trash
-
Great! I’m happy to hear that my suggestion and the Day One help solved your issue. It’s always gratifying to be of help to someone.
-
In addition to the problems and new functionality posed by use dtgriscom, I’d point out a big one.
The search functionality needs to be more robust. At least (but not limited to) add boolean operators to available search syntax, such as: AND, OR, NOT, and using parenthesis to indicate relative importance.
