How to search workspace in Notion on Mac: shortcuts, filters and Command Search

Open workspace search from the sidebar

The most direct way to search your whole workspace in Notion on Mac is the Search item at the top of the left sidebar. Click it, type a word or phrase, and pick the result you want. Notion's help center gives the same steps for the desktop app and the web app, so the habit carries over if you also use Notion in a browser.

Workspace search looks at page titles and at the text inside pages, including pages inside databases. It does not look at everything, and the sections below cover the gaps. Start with the sidebar until the steps feel automatic, then move to the keyboard.

Keyboard shortcuts that open search on Mac

Keyboard shortcuts skip the trip to the mouse. ⌘P opens workspace search. ⌘K opens the same search, but only when your cursor is not inside a block. That detail is why ⌘P is the shortcut to build a habit around. If you press ⌘K while typing and nothing opens, your cursor is probably in a block, so use ⌘P instead. Notion's keyboard shortcut list shows three search keys for Mac, and none of them uses Option, Control or Shift.

• ⌘P: opens workspace search.
• ⌘K: opens workspace search when your cursor is not in a block.
• ⌘F: searches only the page you have open.

Sort results by Best Matches or by date

The sort menu gives you five choices: Best Matches, Last Edited Newest First, Last Edited Oldest First, Created Newest First and Created Oldest First. Best Matches is the default. Use it when you know the page name or a distinctive word from the title.

Switch to a date sort when you remember roughly when you worked on a page but not what it was called. Last Edited suits recent work, such as a draft you changed yesterday. Created suits the page that started a project, even if many people have edited it since.

Filter search by title, creator, teamspace or date

• Title only: limits matches to page titles.
• Created by: shows pages made by the person you pick.
• Teamspace: narrows results to one teamspace. The option shows on Plus, Business and Enterprise plans.
• In: a filter Notion's help page names without listing its options, so open it to see what your workspace offers.
• Date: Today, Last 7 days, Last 30 days, or a custom range.

Filters narrow the list. A tight combination can return nothing even when the page exists, so loosen one filter at a time. Clear the Date filter first, since an old range can hide a page you edited today.

Here is a worked example. You edited a vendor contract last week, but the page title is only the vendor name. Type the name, set Sort to Last Edited Newest First, and set Date to Last 7 days. The list shrinks from every match to the pages you touched this week. If the page still does not show, widen Date to Last 30 days.

A second case: a colleague wrote a product brief last month, and you remember their name. Set Created by to that colleague and set Date to Last 30 days. The list then holds only the briefs they made in that window, which is far fewer than every brief in the workspace.

Command Search on Mac is desktop only

Command Search is a desktop-only feature, and Notion turns it on by default. The web app does not offer it, so a browser tab behaves differently from the Mac app. You can switch it off in Settings > Preferences by toggling off Use Command Search.

Notion's desktop help says the shortcut is customizable, but it does not name a default key combination. Third-party sites name one, and that claim is unconfirmed. Do not rely on a guessed shortcut. Open Settings, check the toggle, and use the sidebar Search item as the fallback.

Command Search has had shortcut problems on macOS. Releasebot, a third-party tracker of Notion release notes, lists desktop version 7.42.1 dated November 4, 2026. It says that version fixed an issue where the Command Search and Notion AI shortcuts could stop working. Check Notion's own release notes to confirm that date. If the shortcut stops responding, update the app first.

What workspace search does not look at

Search has blind spots, and they matter when you hunt for something specific. Notion's help says search excludes comments and discussions. Select and multi-select property values are excluded too. Page and person @mentions do not show up in results. Archived pages are hidden from search by default, according to Notion's release notes from March 26, 2026.

• Comments and discussions: open the page and read the discussion there.
• Select and multi-select values: open the database and filter by that property.
• @mentions: search for the page title or the topic instead of the mention.
• Archived pages: look for them directly, because the release notes do not say how to include them in search.

Database search versus workspace search

Database search matches entry titles and property values. It does not match the page contents inside each entry. Workspace search covers content inside database pages, so use the sidebar Search when the words you need sit in the body of an entry.

A common case is a task tracker. You open the tracker, type a sentence from a task description, and see no matches. The sentence sits in the body of one task page, which database search does not read. Run the same words from the sidebar instead.

Find text inside one page with ⌘F

⌘F is for the page you have open. Use it to find a phrase in a long meeting note or a spec you are editing. It does not search other pages. Say you are reading a long spec and want every mention of rollback. Press ⌘F, type rollback, and step through the matches on that page. Then press ⌘P when you need a different document.

Mistakes that make search look broken

These mistakes explain most of the searches that seem to fail. None of them means the page is gone, so check this list before you start rebuilding anything.

• Typing a long phrase all at once. Start with one distinctive word and add more only if the list is long.
• Leaving Title only on when the word you remember sits in the body text.
• Forgetting a Date or Teamspace filter from an earlier search.
• Expecting comments or select values to match your search.
• Using the web app and looking for Command Search.

Check the filters before you decide a page is gone

Work through three checks in order before you assume a page was deleted. First, clear every filter, especially Date and Teamspace. Second, check whether the page is archived, since archived pages stay out of default results. Third, confirm you are signed in to the workspace that holds the page.

Keep this order because filters are the fastest check to run. Each check takes seconds, which is quicker than rebuilding a page from memory.

What search costs a team in time

Search time adds up across a workday. Coveo's 2022 Workplace Relevance Report surveyed 4,000 adults and found workers spend an average of 3.6 hours every day searching for information at work. The same survey found 44% of the information employees are given is irrelevant to their role, and 60% search four or more data sources every day.

Those numbers cover general workplace search, not Notion specifically. They still explain why a few minutes spent learning ⌘P and the Date filter is a small cost against that time.

Next steps after you find the page

Once you find the page, you may need to share it or lock it. Share a page in Notion on Mac covers permissions and links. Lock a page in Notion on Mac covers locking a page after you finish it. If search stops working after an update, check your macOS version first, since the desktop app needs macOS 13 or later.