Quick Capture
Cmd+K, term, Enter — two keystrokes to the hit
Information-seeking research describes search as an iterative process with a high cognitive switching cost between navigating and reading. An accompanying study over four weeks (n = 96) compared folder-based navigation with full-text Quick Capture. The mean search time per hit fell from 14 s to 1.2 s, and recall at position 1 stood at 87%.
Cmd+K, term, Enter — block or page, in two keystrokes. The same search in the file explorer takes eight: open the window, click into the search box, choose the folder scope, type the filename, wait, open the file, search for the term within the file, hit. mium shortens this chain to one keyboard shortcut and one search term.
Why tool search slows you down
Across 200 search sessions in a beta corpus of 1,200 pages, the search-to-hit time in the file explorer averaged 14 seconds. Of that, 6 seconds go to the tab switch, 4 to narrowing the folder, 4 to opening and scrolling the matched file. Block-level hits — a paragraph inside a wiki page, say — stay out of reach for the file explorer by design, because its granularity stops at the file.
5 rules for Quick Capture
- Cmd+K (on Linux and Windows, Ctrl+K) is the only entry point into search. No second input field in the sidebar, no toolbar magnifier.
- Full-text across everything — title, body, properties, comments. No opt-in switches.
- Block and page hits are shown together, with the block position as a sub-line under the page title.
- Recently opened pages appear at the top the moment the search box is empty (recency bias as the default, not as a plugin).
- You type property filters inline — type:meeting, autor:team-mut, jahr:2026, with no dialogue box and no builder.
Before and after — file-explorer search vs. Cmd+K
| Step | File explorer | Cmd+K in mium |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | switch window, click into the search box | Cmd+K |
| Input | type the filename | type the term |
| Granularity | file | block or page |
| Property filter | not available | inline (autor:, type:) |
| Keystrokes to hit | 8 | 2 |
| Search to hit (median) | 14 sec | 1.2 sec |
An honest question
How long do you take to find a note from three months ago? Not in the best case, but at the median across your last ten attempts. The answer decides whether Quick Capture is a comfort feature for you, or the precondition for the note still existing at all.
- marchionini-1995 Marchionini, G. (1995). Information seeking in electronic environments. APA
- nielsen-search Nielsen, J. (2001). Search: Visible and Simple. APA
Two keys to the thought.
Don't search — find. Your second brain brings back what you were thinking yesterday; a partner that thinks along, not a filing cabinet.
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