Filters and recent searches

Narrow your search with the Open Access and arXiv toggles, and revisit past searches from your history.

Once you know the three ways to search (see Searching for papers), two features help you focus your results and pick up where you left off: filter toggles on the search bar, and your search history.

Filtering your search

The search bar has a small toolbar below the input with two toggles. They apply to your next query, so set them before you press send.

Open Access

Turn on Open Access to limit results to papers with a freely available full text. This is useful when you want to be sure you can open and read every result, not just see an abstract behind a paywall.

When the toggle is off, your results can include papers from closed source we index, regardless of access status.

Note: Some open access papers might still block our systems from accessing them programmatically and would require you to upload them manually after downloading them onto your computer. These will count towards your monthly upload quotas. Write to us if you face this issue with a lot of the literature in your domain.

arXiv Only

Turn on arXiv Only to restrict results to papers hosted on arXiv. This narrows the search to preprints and is handy when you specifically want arXiv content.

One thing to know: in arXiv-only mode, organization, institution, and journal filters are not available. A note appears below the search bar to remind you while the toggle is on.

Filters we detect from your question

When you use natural-language search, we read your question and pull out any filters it implies. These show up as small chips above the answer, so you can confirm we understood you correctly. Depending on your question, the chips can include:

• Query: the core topic we searched for
• Author: an author name mentioned in your question
• Institution: a university or lab
• Source: where the papers came from
• Categories: subject categories
• From and To: a date range
• Access: shown when open access only is in effect

These chips are read-only. They reflect what we extracted; they are not controls you click. If a chip looks wrong, rephrase your question and search again.

Recent searches

Every search you run is saved to your search history so you can return to it later. History is tied to your account, so you will see the same searches on any device where you are signed in.

Where to find your history

There are two ways in:

• Recent Searches in the sidebar: a short list of your most recent searches for quick access.
• The history icon in the search bar: the clock-style icon on the right of the search input opens the full history page.

The history page

The history page lists your past searches, newest first. Each entry shows the search title, a short preview of the answer, how many papers it found, and how long ago it ran.

To re-run a search, click its card. This reopens the full conversation, including the answer and the papers it surfaced, so you can keep refining from where you stopped.

You can also:

• Filter your history: use the search box at the top of the history page to find a past search by its title or by text in the answer.
• Delete a search: hover over a card and click the trash icon to remove that search from your history.
• Start fresh: use New search to open a clean search.

Note that opening a paper directly by its identifier does not show up here; the history page focuses on actual searches with at least one back-and-forth.

Tips

• Set the Open Access and arXiv toggles before you send, since they apply to the next query.
• Use the history search box to find an old search instead of scrolling the whole list.
• If the filter chips show something you did not intend, rephrase the question rather than fighting the wording.
• Re-running a past search reopens the whole conversation, so it is a quick way to continue a line of research.