Finding contacts: find

Finds contacts whose fields match the specified search criteria.

Format: find [KEYWORD]… [n/NAME] [p/PHONE] [e/EMAIL] [a/ADDRESS] [t/TAG]… or: find @INDEX to find contacts associated with the contact at INDEX

  • The search is case-insensitive. e.g. hans will match Hans.
  • Unprefixed KEYWORDs search across all fields (name, phone, email, address, notes, tags) using partial matching. Each keyword must appear somewhere in the contact.
    • Note: As months are abbreviated in reminders, a search with the full name of a month exceeding 3 letters in length will not successfully filter for reminders with that month.
    • Example: Given contact "Alex Yeoh" with note "to meet on Jun 19, 2026",
      • find Jun will display contact "Alex Yeoh"
      • find June will not display contact "Alex Yeoh"
  • Prefixed searches (n/, p/, e/, a/) filter by the specified field using partial matching.
  • t/TAG filters by tag using exact matching (e.g. t/friend will not match a tag named friends).
  • All search conditions are combined with AND logic — only contacts satisfying every condition are returned.
  • At least one search condition must be provided.
  • find @INDEX performs a bidirectional cross-reference lookup on the contact at the given index:
    • It finds all contacts that are referenced by the target contact's notes (via @INDEX references).
    • It also finds all contacts whose notes reference the target contact.
    • This allows you to see all associations regardless of which direction the reference was made.

Examples:

  • find John returns contacts containing john in any field.
  • find n/Alex returns contacts with Alex in their name.
  • find p/94 returns contacts with 94 in their phone number.
  • find a/street t/friends returns contacts that have street in their address and the exact tag friends.
  • find @1 shows all contacts associated with the 1st contact — both contacts referenced in their notes and contacts that reference them.
  • If Contact 1's notes contain @2 (a reference to Contact 2), both find @1 and find @2 will show the association between them.

find contacts