#tumblr search

[changes]

New: Search operators for better searching!

We hear you, and we share your frustrations: it’s hard to find a specific post. You know it has a particular tag or phrase, and it was posted on this date, or at least, within a specific year. But you can't find it!

So, today, we’re excited to announce that you can use ✨ advanced search operators ✨ in the search bar now! You can now say potato from:staff year:2021 to easily enjoy that video of a potato being microwaved again.

Before we jump into the details, a couple of caveats to note:

These search operators are only available in the main Tumblr search bar. They don’t work in the search bar in individual blogs.

The search operators only work on posts created in 2017 or later.

OK! Let’s go explore these operators!

Exact phrase match

When you surround your query with regular double quotes (not curly quotes), it will match posts with that exact phrase in the post's text content, or that exact phrase as a tag.

For example, "chappell roan is roan of arc" matches posts with that exact phrase in the content, and also matches posts that have the exact tag #chappell roan is roan of arc.

Match operator

By default, the query matches the post on either the text or the tags.

You can use match:text to specify you want to search the post content, or match:tags to search the post tags. For example:

sword world match:text looks for posts with the words "sword" and "world" in the post content.

sword world match:tags looks for posts with the words "sword" and "world" in the post tags.

From operator

Use from:blog or from:@​blog to find only posts by a particular blog.

For example, halloween from:staff finds all posts by @staff that has the word "halloween" in the post content or tags.

Year operator

Use year:YYYY to find posts from a particular year.

For example, halloween year:2019 finds all posts from 2019 that has the word "halloween" in the post content or tags.

Date operator

Use date:YYYY-MM-DD to find posts from a particular date.

For example, halloween date:2019-10-08 finds all posts created on October 8, 2019 that has the word "halloween" in the post content or tags.

All together

You can combine all the tools above to form even more specific queries:

Congrats! You’re now a Tumblr search wizard! 🪄

Other syntax

As a reminder, you can already search by a tag, or by multiple tags:

Prefixing your query with # performs a tag search — that is, it will find posts with that exact tag. For example, #star wars will only return posts with the #star wars tag.

You can search for multiple tags at at time. For example, #star wars #art will find posts that are tagged with both the tag #star wars and the tag #art.

You can combine this with the new operators to find what you are looking for!

A guide on how to use the new operators has also been added to our Search and Filtering Basics Guide.

Tumblr Patio support

The enhanced syntax makes Tumblr Patio even more powerful. You can now open multiple search columns each with different fine-tuned queries that use the syntax above to get you customized feeds.

Feedback

We’d love to hear what you think! Please share your feedback in the replies and reblogs of this post, or by reaching out to Tumblr Support.

[goatsandgangsters]

how to find literally any post on a blog in seconds (on desktop)

there are so many posts about ~tumblr is so broken, you can’t find any post on your own blog, it’s impossible, bluhrblub~

I am here to tell you otherwise! it is in fact INCREDIBLY easy to find a post on a blog if you’re on desktop/browser and you know what you’re doing:

url.tumblr.com/tagged/croissant will bring up EVERY post on the blog tagged with the specific and exact phrase #croissant. every single post, every single time. in chronological order starting with the most recent post. note: it will not find #croissants or that time you made the typo #croidnssants. for a tag with multiple words, it’s just /tagged/my-croissant and it will show you everything with the exact phrase #my croissant

url.tumblr.com/tagged/croissant/chrono will bring up EVERY post on the blog tagged with the exact phrase #croissant, but it will show them in reverse order with the oldest first 

url.tumblr.com/search/croissant isn’t as perfect at finding everything, but it’s generally loads better than the search on mobile. it will find a good array of posts that have the word croissant in them somewhere. could be in the body of the post (op captioned it “look at my croissant”) or in the tags (#man I want a croissant). it won’t necessarily find EVERYTHING like /tagged/ does, but I find it’s still more reliable than search on mobile. you can sometimes even find posts by a specific user by searching their url. also, unlike whatever random assortment tumblr mobile pulls up, it will still show them in a more logically chronological order

url.tumblr.com/day/2020/11/05 will show you every post on the blog from november 5th, 2020, in case you’re taking a break from croissants to look for destiel election memes 

url.tumblr.com/archive/ is search paradise. easily go to a particular month and see all posts as thumbnails! search by post type! search by tags but as thumbnails now

url.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/audio will show you every audio post on your blog (you can also filter by other post types). sometimes a little imperfect if you’re looking for a video when the op embedded the video in a text post instead of posting as a video post, etc

url.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/croissant will show you EVERY post on the blog tagged with the specific and exact phrase #croissant, but it will show you them in the archive thumbnail view divided by months. very useful if you’re looking for a specific picture of a croissant that was reblogged 6 months ago and want to be able to scan for it quickly 

url.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/audio/tagged/croissant will show you every audio post tagged with the specific phrase #croissant (you can also filter by photo or text instead, because I don’t know why you have audio posts tagged croissant) 

the tag system on desktop tumblr is GENUINELY amazing for searching within a specific blog! 

caveat: this assumes a person HAS a desktop theme (or “custom theme”) enabled. a “custom theme” is url.tumblr.com, as opposed to tumblr.com/url. I’ve heard you have to opt-into the former now, when it used to be the default, so not everyone HAS a custom theme where you can use all those neat url tricks. 

if the person doesn’t have a “custom theme” enabled, you’re beholden to the search bar. still, I’ve found the search bar on tumblr.com/url is WAY more reliable than search on mobile. for starters, it tends to bring posts up in a sensible order, instead of dredging up random posts from 2013 before anything else

if you’re on mobile, I’m sorry. godspeed and good luck finding anything. (my one tip is that if you’re able to click ON a tag rather than go through the search bar, you’ll have better luck. if your mutual has recently reblogged a post tagged #croissant, you can click #croissant and it’ll bring up everything tagged #croissant just like /tagged/croissant. but if there’s no readily available tag to click on, you have to rely on the mobile search bar and its weird bizarre whims) 

[reactorshaft]

😘sexy💯 independent😈✨free-thinker😝🎱 roger, roger!🙊real🏅yes, we are hooman😇💫all your base are belong to us👍🙌🏼💋

[powdermelonkeg]

Okay but the new Tumblr search feature is actually fantastic though. I haven't seen anyone in my dash even realize it exists. Have you guys seen it?

[cyle]

i love teasing new features

if you go to search tumblr you can add some new qualifiers... like date

if you search "cyberpunk date:2021-01-01" it'll show you posts from that specific date for that query (it only goes back to 2017 right now sadly)

there are more, too! follow @changes, we'll be posting about it probably next week.

[greencheekconure27]

Tumblr should have an "oldest first " option when you search a tag.

I want to be able to find the old obscure posts from before the fandom got big.Ye Olde Memes.Barrel-aged headcanons.Vintage discourse.The ancient lore.

[animaniacs16]

Yo!

For some reason, Tumblr decided to include reblogs in search, never mind the fact that reblogs may not be tagged or completely derail from the original post.

Luckily, they made it an option to see original posts only, so that either way, folks can CHOOSE what they prefer to see (RBs or just originals)

It’s under where you’d go to filter post types- just click on the button next to “original posts only”.

I hope this helps!

[erinwantstowrite]

I currently can't remember if I hallucinated you saying/hinting at a certain something for LoF and I'm just scouring your blog with the word finder tool on trying to find it and I can't figure out if my sense of time really is that fucked or I just imagined it 😭 like how am I supposed to organize this corkboard if I can't remember what you hinted at and what's just my own theories!!!!!

tumblr genuinely hates me personally because their search tools SUCK and not even I can find my own posts half the time (even though I put in the effort to tag what I can) it drives me bonkers!! looking through my archive is the Worst because there's a 99% change i will not find what i'm looking for

that being said: if you guys have theories or want hints, i do try to answer as many as i can without spoiling :3 part of the fun here is the mystery and the theories

[psalm40speakstome]

With Mae he hid his face, and he hid behind the lovable goof exterior.

And one can assume this is always what he hides behind.

Until her. Until Osha

The nudity wasn’t just some seduction game.

It’s symbolic

Because he doesn’t hide from her.

Not even as self protection

Like the scene with the helmet. When he lunges for her. When his entire being if focused and desperately trying to stop it and GET THE HELMET OFF.

How vulnerably open and single focused he is when she in danger.

He is stripped bare before Osha in a way that has zero to do with nudity.

And that sincerity is an absolute delight to watch.

[batwynn]

I was just forced to bear witness my younger self in the s*pernatural fandom because of how messed up the tumblr search is and I’ve never wanted to murder an inanimate website function more than this.

[humblefryingpan]

Is there a way to filter out things when you search tags on here? Like do I have to block it or is there smth else?

Bc I've just started liking bartylus and if you search the "bartylus" tag it'll be 90% just "jegulus but Barty was mentioned" and like I do ship jegulus but I just wanna see them rn yk?

This is a genuine question btw because like do I just scroll past or do I have to block it and unblock later?

[king-k-ripple]

[boreal-sea]

Ok so, since Tumblr has changed how Search works several times over the years, it's been a bit confusing, so I'm going to explain how it currently works.

If you type [search term] into the "Search Tumblr" box, you will not just see posts that are tagged [search term]. You will also see posts that contain the word [search term] in the body of the post. You will ALSO see posts that contain words related to your search term.

For example, if you type "feminism" into the search bar, you will see posts about feminism. But you will also see posts about "feminization kink" and "forced feminization" and "sissy kink". Personally this is a big problem, and certain words should probably function solely as a hashtag search, not a content search, but I digress.

So. If you want to do an actual hashtag search, so you ONLY see posts where people actually tagged the post "#feminism", and avoid all the pornography, you need to type [#searchterm] WITH the hashtag out front. Then you will actually find posts tagged with that word.

[yekokataa]

ok i think the tumblr search update is actually really good. you can combine tags in a search now. so if you search like this you can essentially eliminate everyone's opinions and text posts and only see fanart

[the-uncanny-dag]

Can I have a search result for a fandom I'm in that isn't an x reader imagine fic, a gifset with mid poetry slapped on top or complaining by miserable people who never have any fun. Please. Shit's so dire