Freshdesk has a robust searchbox that helps agents and admins find information quickly across their tickets, customers, and self-service resources.
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How search works in Freshdesk
The search box is in the top-right of the Freshdesk UI next to the new button. You can use it to search for any information to which you have access in your helpdesk.
Your search query is cross-checked against:
- Tickets—subject lines, descriptions, notes, replies, ticket fields, tags, attachment names
- Contacts—names, emails, phone numbers, contact fields
- Solutions—Titles, descriptions, tags, attachment names
- Forums—Titles, posts
When your query contains multiple words, an OR search is performed on the keywords in a starts-with mechanism. For example, let your search query be jet propulsion.
- The first results are exact matches, i.e. items containing the phrase "jet propulsion".
- The next results are partial matches that contain each word, even if not together, i.e. items containing the words "jet" and "propulsion".
- For example, an article that contains the sentence "Our private jet operates on a two-tier propulsion system" will show up as a result.
- The next results are partial matches that contain words that exactly start with the search terms, i.e. items containing words such as "jetpack", "Jetson", "propulsions" etc. but not words like "propel", "propellant", "aircraft", or "plane".
You can eliminate partial matches by enclosing your search query in double quotes, e.g. "jet propulsion".
Keep in mind the following limitations on search:
- Updates in tickets, contacts, etc. take a few minutes to be indexed. They will not show up in search results during those few minutes.
- The maximum indexable size for ticket descriptions is 64 KB.
Search preview
When you click in the search box, you see filters for each sub-type, as well as recent search results. When you type in a query, the recent results are replaced with a preview of new results. You can also click the Gear icon to adjust your search settings for tickets.
 The search preview shows recent results when the query is empty. |  Click the Gear icon to adjust what elements of tickets are searched. |
 When you type in a query, you see relevant results for quick navigation. |
Search results page
When you press Enter after typing in a search query, you are taken to the search results page.
- All results in this page are displayed in their relevant categories.
- Similar to the search preview, you can modify search preferences to narrow down your ticket search.
- By default, results are sorted by Relevance. You can choose to sort by Last Modified or Date Created.
In each result available, you can see the following information:
| Category | Information seen in the search results |
| Tickets | Ticket subject and description Requester Ticket created time Assigned agent Status and priority |
| Solutions | Title of the article The folder in which the article is created Truncated content Author of the article Last published time |
| Forums | Topic name Forum name Post content Topic creator Topic created time |
| Customers | Company name Contact name |
Filtered search on the search results page
When searching for tickets, you can use the Filter button to fine-tune your results with the exhaustive ticket property list, including custom ticket fields. For example, you can look for ‘console repair’ tickets received in the last 10 days, assigned to a specific Group, and given the Urgent priority.
Filtered search is available from the Growth plan onwards.
To use Filtered search:
- Use the search bar to get an initial results page.
- On the search results page, click the Filters button.
In the Filters panel, select the values to filter by and click Apply.
- You can also drill down on each filter to choose a negative modifier ("does not include").
For additional help, contact support@freshdesk.com.