foam search

Search notes by title, alias, tag, or frontmatter property.

foam search [<query>] [options]

Searches the workspace index. The optional <query> is matched against note titles and aliases (substring, case-insensitive). Combine it with --tag and --property filters to narrow results.

For full-text content search, use [[cli-grep|foam grep]] instead.

Options

Option	Description
<query>	Substring to match against note titles and aliases
--tag <tag>	Filter by tag (repeat for AND logic)
--property <key=val>	Filter by frontmatter property; omit =val to match any note that has the key
--type <type>	Filter by resource type: note, daily-note, attachment, image
--limit <n>	Maximum number of results (default: 20)
--workspace <dir>	Workspace root (default: FOAM_WORKSPACE env var, then current directory)
--format <fmt>	Output format: text (default) or json

Examples

Search by title:

foam search "meeting"
# notes/team-meeting.md:1: # Team Meeting Notes
# notes/one-on-one-meeting.md:1: # One-on-One Meeting

Filter by tag:

foam search --tag project

Combine a title query with a tag filter:

foam search "alpha" --tag active

Find all notes with a specific frontmatter property:

foam search --property status=draft

Find all notes that have a due property (any value):

foam search --property due

List only daily notes:

foam search --type daily-note

LINKS TO THIS PAGE

Foam CLI foam grep