You’ve got a ton of useful data in Salesforce. How do you get to what you need, when you need it? Let’s face it, no one has time to browse anymore. It’s all about search. So let us introduce you to the Lightning Experience global search box. It’s at the top of every page, and it’s the fastest way to bring what you need right to your fingertips.
Think of search as your personal assistant—your very smart personal assistant. It anticipates your needs and helps you find what you’re looking for from anywhere in the app.
Get Instant Results, Top Results, and More
As soon as you click into the box, search starts working for you. A list of recent items provides quick links to records you’ve recently visited.
Start typing, and the list dynamically updates with matches from all searchable objects. If you see what you’re looking for, select it to go right to the record.
Don’t see what you need in the dropdown list? Don’t worry—you’ve got options. To see results only for the object you’re on, select the second option in the instant results dropdown list.
Alternatively, you can select the first option or press Enter to search across your entire organization. You’ll land on the Top Results page, which shows you the most relevant results from your most frequently used objects.
You also get a glimpse of how search helps you find what you need. Features like spelling correction and synonyms return matches that are similar to your search term. You might find one that’s just what you’re looking for.
Know which object you want to search? Start typing the name of the object next to the global search box. You can filter the dropdown list (1), or scroll to find what you're looking for. The objects you use most frequently are at the top (2), followed by all searchable objects, listed alphabetically (3).
To select a highlighted object, click it or press Enter. As you type your search term, the instant results are limited to the selected object. Press Enter to see full search results for only that object.
To remove the filter, change the object to All.

Refine Your Results
From the high-level overview of Top Results, it’s easy to zoom in on what you need. See results for a specific object by selecting it on the left, under Search Results. You can see how many results were found for each object.
If you don’t see an object that you need under Search Results, don’t worry, it’s close at hand. Select Show More to see all objects available to you, listed in alphabetical order.
You can filter search results for accounts, cases, contacts, dashboards, files, Knowledge articles, leads, notes, opportunities, people, and tasks, and for custom objects. To see filtering options, click the object name in the Search Results sidebar.
You can also sort most search results. When you first get to the search results page, you see that results are sorted by relevance. That sounds smart—and it is!—but what does it mean, exactly? Several things are considered, like:
- How unique is the search term?
- How often does the search term appear in a record?
- Do you own the record you’re searching for?
You can also sort search results by clicking column headers or using the sort dropdown menu.
You can adjust column widths on the search results page by clicking and dragging the borders in the column header.
Text wrapping is on by default, but you can change this preference for a column by clicking the down arrow in the column header.
Can’t Find What You’re Searching For?
- If you get too many results, try using more—and more specific—search terms.
- Check whether the object or field is searchable.
- Make sure that you have access to the record. Search only returns results you have permission to view.
- If you recently created or updated the record, wait a few minutes for the record to be indexed. If you can’t find your record after 15 minutes, contact your admin.
For more tips, see Search for Records in the Resources section.
We think you’ll agree you’ve found the perfect assistant—it has a broad perspective, yet directs you to the important things. It saves you so much time and effort that you'll probably wonder how you'd get your work done without it.