Finding things

Cmd+K opens a search panel with your recents and jumps to the chat, person or agent you name; searching messages is its own page, with ordering and numbered pages, and it finds calls too.

Updated 26 October 2026

Click the search bar in the header, or press Cmd+K on a Mac and Ctrl+K elsewhere, to open the search panel. It opens full-screen, centered over the page, and the whole search happens there. With nothing typed it shows the people and agents you talked to most recently and your recent group chats, so jumping back is one click. As you type, results fill separate columns: chats, people, agents and workspaces in one, with messages, files, apps and computers beside them. The panel decides which result is highlighted rather than always picking the top row. When a name matches, the best name match is highlighted and Enter opens it. When no name matches, a different row is highlighted, as the next paragraphs explain.

Search covers every chat you are in, including ones your chat list has not loaded yet, except hidden ones. Platform notices and agents' private journals never appear, whether you search names or messages. Omni conversations are left out of the name matches and of the list you see before typing, since they have their own history in Omni.

Chats, people and agents are matched by the letters you type, anywhere in the name, so a misspelt name does not find them: type a part of the name you are sure of instead.

The "Search messages for" row sits right after the best name match, so Enter opens that chat and looking inside messages is one press of the down arrow away no matter how many names matched. If nothing matches by name, that row comes first and is the highlighted one instead, because a query that names no one is usually about something that was said.

Calls are searched with your messages, and a call is a result like any message. When something was said out loud rather than typed, the call turns up in the same list, in the same order as everything else, marked with a camera and how far into the call the words were said. It shows who said them, in which chat, and when the call took place. Opening it goes straight to that moment in the transcript instead of the start. A very long call is searchable up to a limit; the rest stays readable, and the result tells you when that applies.

Searching messages is its own page rather than a section of the dropdown. It has its own address, so you can link someone to a set of results, reload it, and use the browser's back button to step back through it.

The search box at the top of the page holds your query. Edit it and press Enter, or select Search, to run another search. The results replace the page and the browser's Back button returns to the previous results.

Search looks at more than the words people typed: a card's contents, the name of a shared file, and a call recap's summary and action items are all found, and the result shows that text. Joins, renames and other chat notices are not.

Every search word must match, whichever order you choose. Common word endings are recognised, so "renewal" also finds "renewals". Use quotes for a phrase, a minus sign to exclude a word, such as invoice -draft, and or between alternatives, such as gmail or outlook. Finish the word you want to find; message search does not expand unfinished words.

Choose Most relevant, Most recent or Least recent. Changing the order keeps the same matching rules, so the same messages appear in a different order. Relevance considers how closely your words occur together, so an older useful message can appear above newer loose matches. For very common words it ranks the most recent few hundred matches, keeping some from every chat, and the Most relevant list ends there. Switch to Most recent or Least recent to page through every match.

Results include thread replies. Selecting one opens its thread and scrolls to the matching reply. Each result shows a passage around your search words, with the matching words highlighted, including other forms of the same word such as "renewals" for "renewal".

Results come 20 to a page, with numbered pages at the bottom. Changing the order starts again from page 1. Very deep paging stops at page 100.

You can also find a chat by naming who is in it. Two or more names, separated by commas or spaces, match the chats whose members cover every name you gave, which is how to reach a group you never named.

Agents can be found by their handle as well as their name. The handle is the part before the @ in the agent's email address, so typing what you saw in an address, such as "app-builder", finds the agent even when its name is spelt differently.

Computers have a section of their own, below Apps and Files. Type any part of a computer's name and it appears with the agent that owns it, its workspace, the apps it serves and whether it is live or sleeping. Selecting it opens that computer's page on the agent's profile. A computer's name is also the first part of every address it serves, so you can paste a whole address, such as https://pr-dashboard-43h4lb.bolter.run:4173/runs, and search reduces it to the name for you. That is how to learn which agent is behind an address you were sent. You see the computers of the agents you can see: every shared agent in your workspaces, and your own private agents.

If a part of search cannot reach the server, that section says "Search is unavailable" and offers Try again, rather than reporting that nothing matched. Retrying re-runs it in place, so you never need to retype.

The same box can also hand what you typed to your personal assistant. Every search pins a row at the bottom reading "Search via" your assistant's name and what you typed. Pick it, or press the same assistant shortcut described above from anywhere in the search box, and your search goes to the assistant instead of opening a result. It is never the highlighted row, so Enter never sends anything to your assistant by accident. Like the question box, each search you hand over starts its own new chat rather than landing in whichever assistant conversation you used last, and it arrives asking the assistant to search for what you typed. A small notice offers to take you to the new chat.

To retrace your steps, Cmd+[ and Cmd+] (Ctrl+[ and Ctrl+] work too) go back and forward through the screens you have visited, the way they do in a browser. Alt and the left or right arrow do the same thing, if that is the pair your keyboard has taught you. While your cursor is in a text box, including the message box, Alt and an arrow still go back and forward on Windows and Linux. On a Mac, Option and an arrow moves your cursor by a word in any text box, so there it only goes back or forward once the box is empty, for example right after you send. With nothing further to go back or forward to in Bolter, these keys do nothing from a text box; anywhere else Bolter leaves them to your browser.

To move between chats without reaching for the mouse, Alt and the up or down arrow (Option on a Mac) open the chat above or below the one you are in, in the order the sidebar's chat list shows them. They work anywhere the sidebar is shown, the message box included, except a box with its own dropdown list, where Alt and the down arrow opens that list. On a Mac this means Option and up or down no longer move your cursor to the start or end of a paragraph in a text box, other than one with a dropdown list. Chats hidden by a filter are skipped, and so are library items and apps. If the chat you are in is not in the list, for example because a filter hides it, Alt and down opens the first chat in the list and Alt and up the last. At the top or bottom of the list they stop rather than wrapping around.

Escape backs out of whatever you have opened on top of a screen without leaving it: a chat's details panel, a responsibility you expanded. When you opened a responsibility by clicking it in a chat, Escape takes you back to that conversation, since that is where you came from.

You can also just say where you want to go in plain words: "take me to this workspace's Integrations tab" or "open Billing". An agent can hand you the link to the right screen, which beats memorizing where things live.