Explorer: Find connections
The Explorer view helps you rediscover forgotten notes and find hidden relationships between ideas as you write.
Opening the Explorer
- Click the compass icon in the left ribbon to open the Explorer sidebar.
- Alternatively, use the Command Palette (
Ctrl/Cmd + P) and search for:Explorer: open similar notes view.
Finding Similar Notes
The Explorer works automatically based on your current active note.
- Automatic Updates: As you switch between notes, the Explorer list refreshes to show the most semantically similar content in your vault.
- Semantic Matching: Unlike standard search, the Explorer finds notes that share the same meaning, even if they use different keywords.
- Relevance Scores: Each suggestion includes a similarity percentage. High scores (e.g., 85%+) indicate very close conceptual matches.
Use Cases
Finding the missing link
If you are writing about a new topic and feel like you've mentioned it before, check the Explorer. It might surface a note from two years ago that provides the perfect supporting evidence or a conflicting viewpoint.
Automated "See Also" sections
Use the Explorer to quickly find notes that should be linked together. Instead of searching, simply look at the top 3 suggestions and add [[links]] to bridge your silos.
Identifying duplicates
If a note shows a 99% similarity to another note, you might have accidentally created a duplicate or a very thin "stub" that should be merged.
Controlling the Scope
You can adjust how the Explorer calculates similarity in Settings > Explorer.
- Minimum similarity: Increase this if you only want to see very strong matches.
- Number of results: Limit this to keep your sidebar clean.