Chat support available. Click the chat icon on the bottom right corner to start chatting with us right away!

mSecure Support

Knowledge Base Forums Submit a ticket
Discussions > Report a problem > Windows
Start a new topic

Search is not picking up on all data.

So I have a record with I wanna say 6 sections in it and clearly the name Sylvia is present. But if I search for that name it is not found.
Want to add that I just tried a different search phrase and it returned a record that doesn't have the phrase any where.

Hi Mike,

This shouldn't be the problem, but there is a feature where you can search for specific tags only, and that requires using a "#" character in front of the word you're searching for in order to tell mSecure which tag you're querying. Are you by any chance using a "#" in the search term you are entering? If not, can you tell me where in the record the word "Sylvia" is located? Is it in a note field, and if so, does that note field happen to have a lot of data in it?


One other thing, just to be sure, you don't have any other filters set when you run the search, right? Can you confirm that you don't have the favorites filter turned on, you don't have any other filters enabled, which you would see right under the search field, and that you have "All Items" selected at the top of the left column?

I double checked for filters and none set. Here are a couple pictures that might help. 

When I search Moor the record I expect comes up and contains the name I'll search for   

Second Pic shows that name twice. 

sylvia-search.jpg sylvia-search.jpg
79.6 KB
sylvia.jpg sylvia.jpg
137 KB


I think maybe I figured this out and just didn't understand, The colum on the left is seachable/returns results in PWP. But it appears that column is not in MSecure. 

I tried searching for machine ID as well and nadda 

Mike R

That is definitely the problem. The strange thing is, I would think that none of the mSecure apps would be paying attention to the labels for the fields in records, but both the Mac and iOS versions do (I didn't check on Android). I have to talk to our developers about this, because that is something that should be consistent on all platforms. For now, however, the field labels in the Windows version, maybe Android as well, are not searchable.

Thanks Mike, I'd like to think that any data in a record should be included in a search. I hope your team feels the same and adds that to the app for windows and Android. I can confirm I get the same results on Android. I find that to be a big handicap.

Hi Mike,

When you say you get the same results on Android, do you mean that you are not able to get any search results when querying for a field label? You're saying both Android and Windows work the same way, right?

Hi Mike, yes sir the search acts exactly the same on both Windows and android. 


Mike R


Hi Mike,

I'm going to be responding to an email of yours soon, but I wanted to give you an update here too regarding the searching. First, we published 6.0.271.0 for Windows yesterday, so the importing data should now work even with the bug we found in Passwords Plus. You can close the Store app on your PC, then open it again and click the "Get updates" option to download it if you haven't already.


For the searching issue you found, the developer will be changing it so that fields are included in the search for both Windows and Android. However, that change is not implemented in 6.0.271.0. It will be in the next Windows and Android releases we publish to each store.

Hi Mike Reilley


I came across this topic between you and a former PWP user and I just don't agree that it is a good idea to have the Field Label Names made searchable.  All along, since mSecure 3, 4, 5 and now 6, we have had only the Record Titles and Field Contents to be searchable, and not the Field Labels themselves.  Any special or unique information should just go into a generic area like Notes.  If there are multiple passwords, I just add a new field called Admin Name - Sylvia, Admin PW - 80xxx, Admin Pin - xxxx (just to give an example).


I can think of a scenario whereby if I were to have a record that has recovery text such as "mother's maiden name" in one of the records, and if I wanted to search for the string "name", there would be hundreds of records returned since the field label "username" is in practically every login record.


I would strongly encourage you to reconsider this proposed change before you go ahead with the actual implementation.

I'm not sure but I come from Passwords plus to mSecure not by choice. As a PWP user for the last 15 years I have learned that the program will return results on any data taht I have entered in any field. 

And I will agree that in some searches I have had a large record set returned at which point I begin to simply clarify and or refine my search. Never been an issue for me. 


I'm not sure it's been said here but the Apple product versions of mSecure indeed returns results on any field.  What ever the decision I'm trying my best to work with this product as my only other choice at this point is to select another product that I would have to re enter ALL OF MY DATA. I don't want to have to do that. 


Mike R


I'm wondering how difficult it would be to have the results from content searches appear at the top while results from field label searches appear at the bottom.  This would certainly cater to both the old and the new users.

@JSeow Thank you very much for your feedback on this. You probably just saved a lot of other users, and us in support, a lot of grief. I have been letting users know that changes to certain areas of the app can be made only if it doesn't cause users who are already used to the functionality a bunch of problems. I'm not sure why I didn't think of that here. We need to come up with a different solution than simply returning data found in fields as well. I'm not sure if putting certain findings at top/bottom will be the solution, but I do thank you for the idea. I think adding some type of setting either in the search UI when the records are returned or adding a setting to the app will do the trick. I'll have to talk to the developer about this.

@Mike I'm sorry I jumped the gun on saying this change would be made. If we do this now, I'm nearly certain we'll have a lot of users angry about it if they don't have the option to turn it off. However, since this will be new functionality for the Windows version (and Android, though I'm not sure you use that platform), I'm going to have to talk to our developer about a different option. I'll get back to you as soon as I have had time to talk to him about this.

Login or Signup to post a comment