Bluesky Search Operators I Actually Use

Bluesky search becomes much more useful once you know a few operators. I mostly use them to find an old post, track links to a domain, or narrow a busy topic to one language and date range.

Quotes, hashtags, and people

• Put a phrase in quotes to search for those words together: "climate change solutions". Bluesky can also match text in image descriptions.
• Search a hashtag directly, such as #photography or #tech.
• Use to:username for posts directed to an account and mentions:username for broader mentions, including replies and quotes.

If someone changed their handle, "@old-handle.example" searches for the literal old text rather than resolving a current account mention.

Search your own posts

When signed in, from:me finds your posts and mentions:me finds posts that mention you. This is faster than typing a handle and keeps working if the interface knows the current account.

Find who shared a page

Paste a complete URL to look for posts containing that link. For a wider search, domain:example.com finds posts that link anywhere on the domain.

I use the full URL for one article and domain: when I want to see which pages from a site are circulating.

Narrow by language and time

lang: accepts a two-letter language code:

• lang:en for English;
• lang:es for Spanish;
• lang:fr for French.

Operators can be combined, for example lang:ja "アニメ".

Use since: and until: with YYYY-MM-DD dates or full UTC timestamps. This finds posts from one day:

since:2023-10-26 until:2023-10-27

The boundaries use UTC, which matters for searches close to midnight in your own time zone.

Signing in changes the results

Signed-in search can prioritize people you follow, and it enables the me shortcut. That can make results more relevant, but it also means two users may not see exactly the same ordering.

The API uses the same idea

Developers can query Bluesky search through its API and build the same filters into a tool or site. Check the current Bluesky developer documentation for authentication, limits, and endpoint details; those parts can change faster than the search syntax.

You do not need to memorize every operator. Quotes, from:, domain:, and a date range cover most of the searches I actually need.

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