Search and Ask
Type a few words and match them three ways, or describe the clips you want in a sentence and get a filter back.
There are two ways to find a clip by words. Search matches text you or the AI wrote. Ask turns a sentence into a whole filter.
Search
Press ⌘F, or choose Library › Find…. The filter builder opens with an Any text row. Type and the grid follows once you pause.
Any text covers the clip's name, its description and its highlight names. Name, Description and each text property can be searched on their own.
| Mode | Matches | Example |
|---|---|---|
| fuzzy matches | Each word by spelling: exact, a prefix, inside a word, or a typo or two away | "coastlne" finds coastline |
| meaning is | Clips whose prose means the same, through an on-device sentence model | "athlete resting" finds "catching breath after a set" |
| includes | The words themselves, case aside | "IMG_4471" |
The grid sorts by Relevance while words are active, and the footer under the grid says what is being matched.
The meaning index
Meaning search runs on your Mac with a bundled sentence model. Nothing leaves the Mac. The index is built in the background when a library opens and kept in library.db, so a relaunch never rebuilds what did not change.
Only prose is indexed: the name, the description and the highlight names. Filenames and tags are not, since tags have their own conditions. A clip with no description has nothing to match, and the footer counts those. Tag your clips with AI, or write descriptions, and meaning search has something to read.
Ask for clips
Press ⌘K, or click Ask for clips at the top of the sidebar. A card opens over the window. Describe the clips you want and press ↩.
The sentence goes to the model with your library's words: every property and tag with its description, and how many clips carry each. What comes back is a real filter: tags, dates, orientation, status, a text condition, a sort and a layout. Anything about the footage that no tag covers becomes a meaning condition.
The window switches to the Library with the filter applied and the builder open, so you can see exactly what was built and change any row. A sentence that names a status, "drafts with kettlebells", searches All Clips instead, since the Library would hide what you asked for.
Some sentences that work:
- "portrait gym clips from this summer, energetic, newest first"
- "the longest clips, as a table"
- "clips from last month with a face visible"
- "top rated handstands"
The card
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| ↩ | Asks |
| ↑ ↓ | Walk the recent sentences into the field |
| Esc | Cancels a search under way; clears the words; closes an empty card |
The last five sentences asked are listed under the field. Click one to ask it again, or its x to forget it. Before you have asked anything the card shows three examples built from your own tags.
If the model cannot help, the card says why and offers Search by meaning instead, which runs the sentence as a meaning condition.
With clips in the library but nothing tagged yet, the card explains that there is nothing to ask about and offers to tag the clips with AI, with the cost.
What leaves the Mac
| Feature | Sent | Not sent |
|---|---|---|
| Search, all three modes | Nothing | |
| Ask | Your sentence, the library's about text, the names and descriptions of your properties and tags with their counts, today's date | Footage, thumbnails, clip names or descriptions |
Ask charges one credit per question and goes through your BetterApps account. A sentence asked once in a session is answered from memory the next time. See Account and credits.