Find anything with search and the command palette

Eigen has one box that searches your files and email, jumps to any app, and runs quick actions. It's called the command palette, and you reach it from anywhere with a single keystroke. This page shows you how to open it and what it can do.

Open the command palette

You can open the palette in two ways:

• Press ⌘K on a Mac, or Ctrl+K on Windows.
• Click the Search and jump anywhere box at the top of the window.

The box appears in every Eigen app. The keyboard shortcut works from anywhere, even while you're typing in a message or a document. Press the same keys again, or Esc, to close it.

When the palette opens, type into the Search and jump anywhere… box. Results appear as you type, grouped by what they are. Use the arrow keys to move up and down, and press Enter to open the highlighted result. The hints along the bottom (↑↓ navigate, ↵ open, Tab scope, esc close) are a reminder of these keys.

Find a file

Start typing part of a file or folder name. Matches show up under a Files heading, each with the icon for its type.

Press Enter on a file to open it. Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations open in their editor; other files, such as images and PDFs, open in a preview. Search looks at file and folder names, so a word from inside a document won't find it.

Find an email

Type a word from a message and matches appear under a Mail heading, showing the sender, the date, and the subject. Press Enter to open the message in Mail.

Email search looks at the subject, the sender, the people a message was sent to, and a short preview of the body. To narrow a search to a sender or recipient, add from: or to: followed by a name or address:

• report from:alice finds messages about a report from Alice.
• invoice to:finance finds messages about an invoice sent to finance.

Messages in your Trash and Junk are left out of the results.

Narrow to one kind of result

If you only want one kind of result, you can limit the search. Press Tab to cycle through the groups: Files, then Mail, then Actions, then Contacts. The current group shows as a small label above the box. Press Backspace with the box empty to clear it and search everything again.

You can also type a prefix to jump straight to a group:

• file: for files.
• mail: for email.
• @ for contacts.
• > for actions.

So mail: invoice searches only your email, and @alice looks only for the contact Alice.

Jump to an app or run an action

The palette is also the fast way to move around and start things. Type the name of what you want and pick it from the Actions group:

• Go to Mail, Go to Drive, Go to Calendar, and the same for every other app.
• New doc, New sheet, New slide, and New folder, which create the item in Drive.
• Toggle theme, to switch between the light and dark look. See Switch between light and dark theme for more.

Open the palette without typing anything and you get a short Suggested list of common actions to get you going.

Type an email address or a link

The palette understands a couple of things you paste in:

• Type a full email address and choose Mail to to start a new message to that person.
• Paste a web address (starting with http:// or https://) and choose Open link to open it in a new tab.

Act on a file you've selected

In Drive, select a file or folder first, then open the palette. The actions for that item appear at the top under a Selection heading, named after what you picked. From there you can Share it, Rename it, Copy link to it, Download it, Move to trash, and more, without leaving the keyboard.