Search and shortcuts
The fastest way to get anywhere in Bitment is rarely to click through the navigation. A single search palette reaches every client, email, file, task, message, and meeting across the whole workspace, and it doubles as a launcher for opening apps. This page covers how it works, plus a quick overview of the keyboard shortcuts that speed up everything else.
Where to find it
Open the search palette with ⌥Space (Option+Space) from anywhere, or click the search control in the top menu bar. On a phone, pull down on the home screen, or tap Search in the quick actions sheet.
Key concepts
- Command palette: the search dialog itself: one box, results grouped by type.
- App launcher: the palette's other job: matched apps show first, so pressing Enter on a strong match just opens that app.
- Typo tolerance: the palette's fallback matching, used only when an exact search finds nothing.
Search for anything
- Press ⌥Space, or click the search icon in the menu bar. In the desktop app, Ctrl+Space also works.
- Start typing. Matched apps show first in their own group, so if the top hit is the app you meant, press Enter to open it immediately.
- Below the apps, results are grouped by type: clients, emails, files, tasks, messages, meetings, and more.
- Use the arrow keys to move between results, Enter to open the selected one, and Escape to close the palette.
You don't have to spell things correctly
If nothing matches what you typed, the palette automatically retries with typo tolerance, a name off by a character or two, or one with the vowels left out, still finds its match. Exact matches always come first, so a near-miss can never push a real result down the list; the relaxed pass only runs when the exact one found nothing. Very short queries (one or two characters) are matched literally only.
On a phone
There are two ways in: pull down on the home screen, or tap Search in the quick actions sheet (reached from the home bar's quick actions button).
Ask the AI instead
Search finds things; it doesn't answer questions. For an answer, or to have something done for you, talk to the AI directly instead, either the AI control in the top menu bar or the chat and assistant panels. See AI overview.
Keyboard shortcuts overview
Bitment's desktop workspace has a full set of keyboard shortcuts for navigation, windows, and common actions. A quick reference is built in:
- Click the keyboard-shortcuts button in the top menu bar (the ? icon), or press ⇧⌥? (Shift+Option+?; ⇧⌘? on the desktop app).
- The dialog lists every global shortcut, grouped by Global actions (search, the AI Assistant, Emails, notifications, the recorder, voice-to-text, and this dialog itself) and Windows (switching, tiling, maximizing, restoring, and quitting).
A few of the most-used shortcuts:
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Open search | ⌥Space |
| Toggle the AI Assistant | ⌥A |
| Open or close Emails | ⌥E |
| Toggle notifications | ⇧⌥N |
| Start a meeting or the recorder | ⌥R |
| Show keyboard shortcuts | ⌥? |
In the Mac or Windows desktop app, ⌘ (or Ctrl) also works in place of ⌥ for most of these. For the complete list, including every window-management shortcut, see Keyboard shortcuts.
Tips
- If you can't remember which app something lives in, search for it by name rather than guessing at the navigation.
- Typo tolerance means it's fine to search on a half-remembered spelling of a client's name.