Our powerful new search is now live on World Anvil… with new features! You can now browse the content in your world from anywhere—scroll secrets, mull over maps, and trawl through your timelines—and open it up, or copy links into what you’re currently working on.

What’s new in World Anvil’s search?

If you’re an Alchemist, you’ll have seen our brand new search has been in Alchemist testing. Well, it’s finally here for everyone! And here are the new features you can find:

  • Tabs for better filtering: The Search panel now has a tab for each content type (i.e. Articles, Timelines, Maps, etc). The default tab is “All” and includes results from your entire world regardless of content type.
  • Quick access to content: Before you search anything, each tab is populated with a full list of that content type. For example, the “Secrets” tab will have a list of all your Secrets by default.
  • Recently edited content: The “All” tab open with a list of everything you’ve recently edited (including Secrets, Timelines, and everything else).

When you click on a result, it will open in edit mode. When you mouse over an item in the search results, you’ll see several buttons with additional options, such as copying its embed code or deleting it. As of January 2026, the Search panel looks like this:

Screenshot of the new search open in the articles & categories tab

New search unlocks new workflows

This new search unlocks a whole host of great new workflows for worldbuilding on World Anvil.

  • If you’re writing an article and can’t remember the name of your secret, you can browse through them until you find it.
  • Browse timelines to link the one that shows off your city’s history.
  • Or look through those million stat blocks to find the perfect spell for your latest cursed sword (I mean, who can resist them?)

We want to hear your feedback!

What do you think about this update? How can it be improved? We want to hear from you!

To leave feedback: Log into World Anvil. Then click the “?” Help icon at the top right to find the feedback widget. We read every single feedback comment that comes in and keep it in mind during our development.

World Anvil is a living software, so if you’re reading this blog from the future, there’s a possibility the design  shown above has changed – probably because someone gave us their feedback! 😉