When you have been using Google Keep for several years, your dashboard will inevitably become a chaotic graveyard of hundreds of old grocery lists, meeting notes, and random ideas. While you can use the standard search bar at the top of the screen to search for specific words (like “milk”), this is highly inefficient if you cannot remember exactly what you typed. To instantly sift through a massive note database, you must utilize Google Keep’s advanced visual filtering system, which allows you to sort notes by color, labels, and hidden attributes.
How to Filter Notes by Color
If you have been diligently color-coding your notes (e.g., making all work notes blue and personal notes green), you can use those colors as structural search filters.
- Open Google Keep on mobile or desktop.
- Click or tap directly inside the Search bar at the top of the screen. Do not type any words.
- Instead of typing, look at the visual menu that drops down. Scroll down to the Colors section.
- You will see a palette of circles representing every background color you have used. Tap the Blue circle.
Google Keep will instantly hide everything on your dashboard, isolating and displaying only the notes that possess a blue background, completely regardless of the actual text written inside them.
How to Filter by Hidden Attributes
The true power of the Google Keep search bar lies in its ability to scan for specific metadata and note types.
When you click into the empty Search bar, look at the Types and Things categories.
- Lists: Clicking this filter instantly hides all standard text notes, displaying only notes that contain interactive checkboxes.
- Images: Clicking this filter isolates any note that contains an attached photograph, drawing, or screenshot, saving you from endlessly scrolling to find a receipt you photographed three months ago.
- URLs: The system automatically detects web links. Clicking this filter isolates any note containing a hyperlink, effectively turning Google Keep into an organized bookmark manager.
- Reminders: Clicking this isolates only the notes that have an active time or location-based alarm attached to them.
By utilizing these visual and attribute-based filters, you can navigate a database of thousands of notes in a fraction of a second without ever touching your physical keyboard.