# Finding things

Every way you remember an image is a way to find it: a word, a description, a color, a date, a tag, a lookalike.

*Written from Teserra 1.3.16.*

**In short**

1. Press `⌘K` and describe the picture: “warm light on a white wall”.
2. Right-click an image, **Find Similar**.
3. Select a few images, then **Constellation**.

## ⌘K, one search box

Type a word and Teserra looks in filenames, titles, descriptions, tags, the visible text the Curator or your agent read in a picture, the body of saved articles, source addresses and camera details. Type a phrase that describes the picture, “marble statue, side light”, and the local visual model finds it by meaning. Both kinds of results come back in one list, grouped so you know why each one matched. A floating card shows the count and the source.

[Clip: The phrase mountains in the fog is typed in the search field and the Design grid narrows from 549 items to 19 pictures of misty mountains and landscapes.](https://teserra.app/assets/snips/search-meaning.mp4)

> **Short words.** A query of three letters or fewer matches whole words only, so “car” does not return everything with “card” in it.

## Find Similar

Right-click any image → **Find Similar**. Its visual siblings come up, image against image, within the collection, tag and filters you are in: open All to search the whole library. It runs on your Mac with Visual search on; without it, Teserra falls back to the Curator's index, which uses your key.

![The toolbar shows Similar to Futuristic data dashboard and the grid holds only dark, futuristic dashboard screens.](https://teserra.app/assets/snips/find-similar.webp)
*Find Similar keeps the pictures that look like the one you picked.*

## Constellation *(new in 1.3.13)*

Select two images or more and the panel shows **What they share**: the style words and the palette they have in common. Click **Constellation** and Teserra draws what belongs with them across the whole library: your picks at the centre, the rest on two orbits, each one threaded to the pick it is closest to, and a surprise from a collection none of your picks belong to. One image works too, from the inspector or a right-click.

[Clip: Three Dark Futurism images selected; What they share shows red, orange, cinematic; the constellation draws itself around them, a style word is left out and the sky recomposes.](https://teserra.app/assets/tour/constellation.mp4)

- Click a style word to leave it out. **Keep** holds one thread (colours, light or style, all three marked Experimental) and lets everything else change. **Stars** switches between 16 and 30.
- Hover a star to see why it is there. **×** sets it aside and **Bring back** returns it, `⇧`-click makes it a seed, `Esc` takes you back.
- **Save as collection**, **Sheet…** (a 2400 px PNG of the constellation with its words and palette, for Keynote or Slack), **Copy for AI** (a brief to paste into Claude Code, Codex or Cursor), and **Copy** for the palette or one of its colours.

> **Needs Visual search.** Constellation runs on the local visual model, on your Mac, with no AI key. Agents can draw one too: see [Agent access](https://teserra.app/docs/agents).

## Filters

- **Color**: a wheel, a hex value, saved colors. Several at once. Distance measured the way eyes see it.
- **Dates**: a calendar with a heat map of your activity.
- **Activity**: in the Library panel of the inspector, a GitHub style graph of what you added, one square per day over the last fifteen weeks, computed on the current scope. Click a day to filter the grid on it, click again to clear.
- **Rating**, **Type** (formats grouped by family, RAW included), **site** for links.
- Every filter combines with the search box and with a collection.

## Sort

In Grid view: **Import order**, **Recent**, **Name**, **Size**, **Ratio** or **Color**, each both ways. The dice next to it, **Shuffle**, reshuffles the library and stays stable while you scroll.

## Three views

**Grid** is where you work. **Timeline** shows the library day by day, session by session, with sessions stacked into piles. **Wall** walks your collection on a curved track, one piece in front, `R` for a random pick. Switch from the toolbar; the selection follows you.

[Clip: The Dark Futurism collection in Grid, then in Timeline, grouped by day, then on the Wall, one piece in front.](https://teserra.app/assets/tour/wall.mp4)

![The Architecture collection in Timeline view, with day headings, session times, thumbnails and October, September and August 2026 on the month rail.](https://teserra.app/assets/snips/timeline.webp)
*Timeline groups your items by day and import session, with the months along the right edge.*