Ever asked yourself where you stored your meeting location? Was it Twitter or Mail? Did I store my resume in Dropbox, Google Docs or Evernote? Welcome to the other side of search – Greplin. It allows you to consolidate your social media and cloud information in one place to make it searchable.
So far I have only used it occassionally as it only offerd a browser-based access. They have meanwhile released a free iPhone app which adds huge value as most of the time I need to search while on the go.
Currently it’s able to access the following platforms. (Premium means you’ll have to upgrade to the pro service, while unlockable means you’ll have to invite friends):
• Gmail
• Several Google Apps (premium)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Dropbox
• LinkedIn
• Google Calendar
• Google Docs
• Google Contacts
• Evernote (premium)
• Yammer (premium)
• Salesforce (premium)
• Highrise (premium)
• Delicious (unlockable)
• Tumblr (unlockable)
• Reddit (unlockable)
• Basecamp (premium)
• Campfire (premium)
• Google Reader (unlockable)
Since I signed up while in beta I was granted a “premium” account for free – thanks a lot. This also allows me to test a few features in more detail.
Greplin promotes its “smart search” feature in order to guess your next search using the date, timing and your location. This results in highlighting suggested searches based for example on your next calendar events. I found this to be quite useful allthough it assumes you connect quite a few datasources with Greplin. I also found it to double-index a few items, especially with Evernote. It brings up a file as well as a note.
Greplin allows a few operators to improve your search results:
| Operator | Returns results… | Example |
|---|---|---|
| to:someone | sent to someone | to:mom |
| from:someone | sent from someone | from:robby |
| has:attachment | containing an attachment | vacation has:attachment |
| has:link | containing a URL | vacation has:link |
| something –otherthing | containing something and not containing otherthing | party -friday |
| sort:new something | results sorted newest to oldest | sort:new invitation |
| sort:old something | results sorted oldest to newest | sort:old inoice |
| cc:someone bcc:someone |
to someone | cc:mom@gmail.com bcc:dad@gmail.com |
| subject:something | returns results with a specific subject | subject:vacation |
| “something“ | returns results with an exact phrase | “2011 Summer Vacation” |
If you extensively use cloud based services you have made a decision already about the sensitivity of the data you are storing and this tool closes a gap which astonishingly Google didn’t tackle yet. I guess a newcomer had to enter this as quite a few would be reluctant to have the search giant also access their “private” data.
Premium will set you back $4.99 a month, or you can go for the yearly package at $49.99 to have access to stuff like Campfire, Evernote or Highrise. Link is here
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