reMarkable 2 Search Functionality [Guide]

Mastering reMarkable search functionality makes it easier to find your notes or specific thoughts on your paper tablet. This can be used to jog your memory on a specific conversation or to locate detailed project notes without digging around in various notebooks.

This post contains affiliate links. I earn commissions when you buy through these links, at no cost to you.

What is the reMarkable 2 tablet?

The reMarkable tablet is a digital device designed to mimic the feel of paper and pen – allowing the user to focus in an “old school” way on new school tech. It’s primarily focused on note-taking, sketching, and other creative tasks. The device features an e-ink display, providing a paper-like writing experience with minimal eye strain.  The system consists of the e-ink tablet and an EMR stylus that the user writes with.  Additionally, there is an Type Folio cover that features a keyboard as an alternative input device.  The system is backend-ed in the Cloud with user interfaces through reMarkable Connect website, desktop app, and mobile app. 

How does the reMarkable search function work?

After a few years of using the reMarkable 2 tablet as both a consultant and an executive inside companies, the ability to quickly locate older notebooks has become increasingly important.  After quite a bit of testing and use, I’ve discovered that there are essentially two types of search on the reMarkable device search and notebook search.   

Two types of reMarkable searches:

• Device search – the reMarkable device search looks across the device / cloud but only looks at the notebook & document level.  This level of search can also be performed on the reMarkable desktop and mobile apps.
  
• Document / notebook search – the reMarkable can search within a specific notebook or document, but only for typed or converted handwritten text

reMarkable search limitations:

• The reMarkable cannot search your handwritten text (as it’s not been converted into a searchable format).  This is absolutely a want for reMarkable 3.0 (or a future software release) to perform this backend conversion to make notes searchable
  
• There is not a search function on the reMarkable Connect website

How to use reMarkable search functions

Use reMarkable device search function

To access the device-wide search function, select the magnifying glass icon when outside a notebook (in folder view). From this point, you can search for notebook or document names.

In the device search mode, you can also filter by type (ebook, notebook, pdf) and tags.

Use reMarkable notebook search function

To access the search function inside a specific notebook, you need to start with the notebook open. Open the note menu and navigate to the bottom of the screen. Select the “Export and Share” icon (the square with the arrow) and then “Search” (the magnifying glass).

From this point, you can type in the word or phase that you’re looking for. Remember, this will only work for typed or converted text.

One downside to the intra-notebook search function is that the reMarkable highlights the found text in unreadable black when it’s located. Fixing this shortcoming would be a great improvement @reMarkable

Tips to increase effectiveness of reMarkable 2 search

Even with the limitations of the reMarkable’s search function, there are a few tips that can increase the effectiveness of your searches:

• Tagging notebooks – notebook tags are a great way to easily find certain types of content.  They natively pop up in the device search, so tags are easily accessible to filter notebooks (without any typing). Check out this deep dive on reMarkable tag functionality.
  • Notebook tag examples – presentations, functions, consulting clients, planners, templates, reference
  • Page tag examples – reference, important
    
• Create descriptive notebook titles – when using device search, the results are generated from the titles you’ve given to your notebooks and documents.  When creating notebook titles, use key words that you might use to search for the specific notebook.  Additionally, make sure that you spell check your notebook titles, as reMarkable doesn’t have a “did you mean” function like Google.
  
• Convert handwriting to text – If you want to search within a notebook, you’ll need to convert your handwritten notes to text.  You can bulk convert the whole note or just specific pages.  For instructions, see our detailed article on reMarkable handwriting conversion. 
  
• Use search type as a filter – When you open device search, you’ll have the opportunity to filter the results by document type (eBook, PDFs, notebooks, or all).  This functionality can be an easy way to find specific document types before using tags.  This is especially effective if there are document types that you don’t use often.  For me, that’s eBooks – which you can see below filter very quickly to the couple of books on my reMarkable.

reMarkable Search FAQ