BetterSearch is a macOS menu bar app that provides fast, advanced search for your iMessages. Search through years of conversations in milliseconds using powerful filters. Jump to any date, find shared links, filter by person, and view full conversation context around any message.
Yes, completely. All indexing and searching happens locally on your Mac. Your messages never leave your device. BetterSearch never transmits your message content. The only network communication is for license validation.
BetterSearch supports powerful filters: from: (filter by person), date: (today, yesterday, specific dates, date ranges), link: (find specific URLs), and has:link (messages with any link). Combine multiple filters for precise results. For example, "from:John date:today hello" finds messages from John, sent today, containing "hello".
BetterSearch creates a local search index from your iMessage database. The index updates automatically at configurable intervals (1, 5, 15, or 30 minutes; default is 5 minutes). You can also sync manually or disable auto-sync entirely. On first launch, BetterSearch builds the initial index, which only happens once.
Yes. You can set up a passcode to protect access to BetterSearch with configurable timeout options (1, 5, 15, or 30 minutes, or 1 hour). Touch ID is also supported on compatible Macs. Your passcode is hashed locally and never transmitted.
BetterSearch needs Full Disk Access to read your iMessage database. Without this permission, BetterSearch cannot search your messages. To grant access: open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access → enable BetterSearch. The app will restart automatically.
BetterSearch costs $20 for a lifetime license. Each license supports activation on up to 3 Macs. You can transfer your license to a new Mac by deactivating your current device in Settings → License Information → Deactivate Device.
First, ensure you've granted Full Disk Access in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access. Make sure you've used Messages.app on this Mac. If issues persist, try rebuilding the search index in Settings → Database Management → Rebuild Index.
Click "Sync Now" in Settings to manually update the index, or wait for the next automatic sync based on your sync interval (default is 5 minutes). You can adjust the sync frequency in Settings or disable auto-sync entirely.
Go to Settings → Software Updates → Check for Updates. By default, BetterSearch checks for updates automatically. You can disable automatic update checks in Settings if you prefer to update manually.
Apple doesn't provide an API to deep-link into specific conversations in Messages.app. Instead, BetterSearch shows the full conversation context directly within the app so you can read the surrounding messages without leaving BetterSearch.