Configure search
Passwork stores data in an encrypted format, making it impossible to use standard database search functions. To ensure quick searches, Passwork creates special secure indexes for each password. This process involves analyzing the password information, breaking it down into individual words, and computing a secure hash for each part of each word.
On the Global tab of System settings, you can set the maximum number of substrings for search. Lower values result in a smaller database size, but the search accuracy may be reduced.
After the number of substrings is set, all passwords must to be reindexed using the Reindex all passwords button
Passwork search is performed by the fields title, login, URL, and note. Before saving a password, an array of search options is created for these fields.
As an example, let's take a password where the title field will have the value "sOme wonDerful name".
First, the string is converted to one case and split into individual words. The result for our example will be the following array [some, wonderful, name]
Then, for each individual word, its substrings will be found, starting from the first and ending with the fifth character. The result will be an array:
[s, so, som, some, w, wo, won, wond, wonde, wonderful, n, na, nam, name]
When the user enters a string in the search field, the entered data is also converted to one case and split into individual words, and then into substrings. Then Passwork compares the array entered by a user and the arrays created during password creation. When the array elements match, Passwork displays the password in the search results.
Please note that by default, substrings are formed up to the 5th character, and the whole word is also recorded. Therefore, if you enter wonder in the search field, you will not see this password in the search results. To search for the password from the example, you need to enter w, wo, won, wond, wonde or wonderful. You can change the number of characters for forming substrings in Search settings.
Folder search is performed from the beginning of words, splitting into words is done by spaces.
For example, searching for folder title will result in this folder, as there is a space between the words, but if you search with a hyphen folder-title the search will not give a result.