Terminal Search

OxideTerm provides two search modes for finding content in your terminal sessions — one for the current viewport, and another for the full session history.

Two Search Modes

Mode	Scope	Speed	Best For
Visible Buffer	Current viewport + xterm.js scrollback	Real-time (< 5 ms)	Finding recent output quickly
Deep History	Full session history (up to 100,000 lines)	Async (50–100 ms)	Searching through extensive command history

Opening Search

Keyboard shortcut:

• macOS: ⌘F
• Windows: Ctrl+Shift+F
• Linux: Ctrl+F

Or right-click in the terminal → Search.

Search Interface

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  [Visible Buffer] [Deep History]                [×]  │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  🔍 Search terminal output...       2/15  [↑] [↓]   │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  □ Aa (Case)  □ .* (Regex)  □ Word (Whole Word)     │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Element	Function
Mode tabs	Switch between Visible Buffer and Deep History
Search input	Type your search query
Match counter	Shows current position / total matches (e.g. 2/15)
Navigation	↑ previous, ↓ next match
Options	Case sensitivity, regex, whole word matching

Visible Buffer Mode

Searches content currently visible in the terminal viewport using xterm.js’s native SearchAddon.

• Real-time highlighting — results appear as you type (150 ms debounce)
• Yellow highlight — matching text highlighted in yellow
• Orange highlight — currently selected match shown in orange
• Fast — millisecond response, no backend round-trip

Navigation

Action	Shortcut
Next match	Enter or click ↓
Previous match	Shift+Enter or click ↑
Close search	Esc

Match Limit

Visible Buffer search caps at 1,000 matches for performance. If you see 1000+ matches, refine your search query.

Deep History Mode

Searches the full session history stored in the backend scrollback buffer — default 30,000 lines, configurable up to 100,000 in settings.

• Asynchronous — runs via spawn_blocking, keeping the UI responsive
• Result list — displays all matches with line numbers and content
• Click to jump — click any result to scroll the terminal to that position
• Powered by Rust Regex — fast pattern matching on large buffers

Viewing Results

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  15 matches (45ms)                                   │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Line 1234                                           │
│  npm install react-dom                               │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Line 2456                                           │
│  npm install success — installed 23 packages         │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ...                                                 │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Deep History shows the first 100 matches. If more exist, a footer shows the total count (e.g. Showing first 100 of 456 matches).

Search Options

Case Sensitive (Aa)

State	Behavior
Off (default)	error matches error, Error, ERROR
On	error matches only error

Regular Expression (.*)

State	Behavior
Off (default)	file.txt matches literally — the . is escaped
On	file.txt also matches fileXtxt — . matches any character

Whole Word (Word)

State	Behavior
Off (default)	test matches test, testing, contest
On	test matches only the standalone word test

Word boundaries include spaces, punctuation, and line start/end.

Common Regex Patterns

Pattern	Description	Example
^xxx	Line start	^Error: matches lines beginning with Error:
xxx$	Line end	success$ matches lines ending with success
a|b	OR	ERROR|FATAL matches either word
\d+	Digits	port \d+ matches port 3000, port 8080
\w+	Word chars	user_\w+ matches user_admin, user_123
.*	Any chars	start.*end matches anything between start and end

Use Cases

Finding Error Logs

1. Switch to Deep History
2. Enable Regex
3. Search: ^(ERROR|FATAL):
4. Click results to jump to each occurrence

Recent Git Commands

1. Stay in Visible Buffer
2. Search: git commit
3. Press Shift+Enter to navigate upward

Extracting IP Addresses

1. Switch to Deep History
2. Enable Regex
3. Search: \b\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\b
4. Browse the result list

Finding Port Numbers

1. Stay in Visible Buffer
2. Enable Regex
3. Search: port \d+

Performance

Visible Buffer

Metric	Value
Response time	< 5 ms
Max matches	1,000
Scope	Viewport + xterm.js scrollback

Deep History

Metric	Value
Search speed	50–100 ms (100K lines)
Engine	Rust Regex
Execution	Async (spawn_blocking)
Default history	30,000 lines (configurable to 100,000)

Advanced Tips

Combine options — Enable Regex + Case Sensitive + Whole Word together. For example, \bError\b matches only the standalone capitalized word “Error”.

Negative lookahead — Use ^(?!.*DEBUG).*ERROR to find lines containing ERROR but not DEBUG.

Anchored search — Add ^ or $ to reduce false matches and improve performance.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	macOS	Windows / Linux
Open search	⌘ F	Ctrl+Shift+F (Win) / Ctrl+F (Lin)
Close search	Esc	Esc
Next match	Enter	Enter
Previous match	Shift+Enter	Shift+Enter

Troubleshooting

No results but content exists? Turn off Case Sensitive. Switch to Deep History if the content has scrolled past the viewport. Check regex syntax if enabled — look for error messages at the bottom of the search bar.

Deep History search slow? Simplify regex patterns. Add more specific search terms. Very large histories (100K+ lines) with complex patterns take longer.

“1000+ matches” in Visible Buffer? Refine your search. Use Whole Word matching or add anchors (^, $) to reduce matches.