Finding things

Cmd+K is a switcher that jumps to the chat, person or agent you named; searching inside messages is its own page, with ordering and numbered pages.

The Search row in the left sidebar (or Cmd+K, with Ctrl+K working just as well) opens a switcher: type a few letters and the chat, person, agent or workspace you named is the top row, already highlighted, so pressing Enter goes straight there. Files and apps sit alongside it.

The second row is always "Search messages for" what you typed. It is at a fixed place, so looking inside messages is one press of the down arrow away no matter how many names matched. If nothing matches by name, that row is the highlighted one instead, because a query that names no one is usually about something that was said.

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.

On that page you can choose the order:

• Most relevant, the default. This is the one that matches loosely: you do not have to finish a word, so "renew" finds a message about a renewal while you are still typing it, and a message related in meaning can surface even when it shares no words with your query. Type several words and it prefers messages carrying all of them, then falls back to the ones carrying some.
• Most recent and Least recent, which order strictly by when the message was sent. These two match exactly: every word you typed has to appear in full. Partial words and related-in-meaning matches are left out, because a list in time order whose rows do not contain what you typed is confusing rather than helpful.

Results come 20 to a page, with numbered pages at the bottom. Changing the order starts again from page 1, since page 3 of a different order is a different set of messages. 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.

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. Both are ignored while your cursor is in a text box, so they never interrupt what you are typing.

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.