See your content spatially.

Pan, zoom, and explore.
Navigate your entire workspace as a visual landscape. Pan across your content, zoom into clusters of related items, and move freely through your digital mind. It feels more like exploring a map than scrolling through a list.

Focus on any item.
Click any card to focus on it and see related keywords and similar content. Click another card to see what relates to that one. You can hop infinitely between items, following threads of connection wherever they lead.

Group and filter.
Use the "Gather by" dropdown to automatically arrange your content into groups by creation date, creator, file type, and more. Apply filters to narrow down what is visible and explore a specific subset of your workspace.

Discover what you did not know you had.

Serendipitous rediscovery.
Click "I'm feeling lucky" to jump to a random item in your workspace. Rediscover notes you wrote months ago, articles you saved and forgot about, or ideas that are suddenly relevant again.

Content relationships.
Explorer shows you how your content relates to other content based on meaning, not just tags or folder location. See connections between a research paper and a note you wrote weeks later, or between a saved article and a project brief that addresses the same topic.

Scope it to any space.
Open Explorer from the home screen to see your entire workspace, or activate it inside a specific folder or space to explore just that collection. The scope adapts to where you launch it.

A new way to think about your information.

Most tools show you your content as a list or a grid. You scroll through items one by one, or you search for something specific when you already know what you are looking for. But some of the most valuable moments with your saved content happen when you are not searching for anything in particular. When you stumble across a note that connects to something you are working on now. When you realize two articles you saved months apart are about the same underlying idea. When an old piece of research becomes relevant to a new project.

Explorer is designed for those moments. It lays your content out spatially and shows relationships between items based on what they mean, not just where you filed them. This is powered by the same semantic understanding that drives Fabric's smart search and smart organization, but presented visually so you can see patterns and connections that a list view cannot reveal.

Explore by hopping between ideas.

The core interaction in Explorer is focusing on an item and seeing what is related to it. Click a card, see what surrounds it, and then click one of those related cards to shift your focus. Each hop shows you a new set of connections. You can follow a chain of related content across your entire workspace, discovering unexpected links between ideas, projects, and saved materials. It is a fundamentally different way of navigating your content compared to searching or browsing folders.

This makes Explorer particularly useful for anyone practicing Zettelkasten, building evergreen notes, maintaining a digital garden, or working with any knowledge system that emphasizes connections between ideas. The relationships Explorer surfaces are based on the actual content of your files, not links you manually created. It finds connections you may not have thought to make yourself.

Rediscovery as a creative tool.

For content creators and writers, Explorer can be a source of inspiration. Browsing through your saved content spatially, hopping between related items, and hitting "I'm feeling lucky" to land on something unexpected can spark ideas in a way that methodical searching does not. The same applies to brainstorming sessions and early-stage research, where the goal is not to find a specific answer but to see what is out there and what connects.

Designers can use Explorer to browse saved references and inspiration visually, seeing how different moodboard materials relate to each other. Students can explore course materials and see how different lectures and readings connect to each other. Researchers can use it to identify unexpected relationships between papers in their literature review that might not be obvious from reading them individually.

Works with large and small collections.

Explorer is useful whether you have a hundred items or ten thousand. With smaller collections, it gives you a visual overview of everything you have saved and how it relates. With larger collections, the grouping and filtering tools let you focus on specific slices of your workspace while still benefiting from the spatial layout and relationship discovery. You can explore your entire workspace from the home screen, or scope Explorer to a single folder or space to focus on a specific project or topic.

Use cases

Research exploration
Navigate your collected papers, notes, and sources visually. Discover connections between research materials that you might miss in a folder or list view. See how Fabric supports research.

Brainstorming and ideation
Browse your saved content spatially during early-stage creative work. Hop between related items and use "I'm feeling lucky" to surface unexpected inspiration. See how Fabric supports brainstorming.

Second brain review
Revisit and rediscover content across your personal knowledge base. See how ideas you have collected over time connect to each other and to your current work. See how Fabric supports a second brain.

Study and revision
Explore course materials and see how topics connect across lectures, readings, and your own notes. Build a deeper understanding of how concepts relate. See how Fabric supports studying.

Competitive and market research
Explore saved articles, reports, and notes about your market or competitors. Group by date to see how coverage has evolved, or hop between related items to spot trends. See how Fabric supports competitive research.

Perfect for

Researchers
Explore your library of papers and notes visually. Discover relationships between sources that might not be obvious from titles or tags alone. Especially useful during literature reviews where seeing the landscape of research matters. Learn more about Fabric for researchers.

Students
See how your course materials, lecture notes, and readings connect to each other. Use Explorer to build a mental map of how topics relate across your study materials. Learn more about Fabric for students.

Creative professionals
Browse saved inspiration, references, and ideas spatially. Rediscover content that sparks new directions for design projects and creative work. Learn more about Fabric for designers.

People with ADHD
If traditional filing and browsing does not work for how your brain organizes information, Explorer offers a more intuitive way to navigate your content. Hop between related items and let connections emerge naturally. Learn more about Fabric and ADHD.

Works seamlessly with other features.

Smart search
Explorer is powered by the same semantic understanding as Fabric's smart search. The relationships it surfaces are based on content meaning, not just keywords or manual tags.

Smart organization
Content relationships in Explorer are enhanced by Fabric's automatic organization, which extracts metadata, identifies topics, and understands how your files relate to each other.

Canvas
Discover connections in Explorer, then arrange them on a canvas for deeper visual work. Explorer is for discovery, canvas is for creation and organization.

AI assistant
Found something interesting while exploring? Ask your AI assistant to summarize it, explain how it connects to other content, or expand on the ideas it contains.

FAQ

How do I open Explorer?
Click "Explore mode" on the app home screen, or click the compass icon inside any folder or space. You can learn more in the Explore mode guide.

What does Explorer show me?
Explorer displays your content as cards in a spatial layout, with related items positioned near each other. You can pan, zoom, focus on individual items, and see connections between them.

What determines how items are related?
Relationships are based on the semantic meaning of your content, not just shared tags or folder locations. Fabric's AI understands what your files are about and surfaces connections between items that address similar topics, concepts, or themes.

Can I explore just one folder or space?
Yes. If you activate Explorer inside a specific folder or space, it only shows content from that location. If you open it from the home screen, it shows your entire workspace.

What does "I'm feeling lucky" do?
It jumps you to a random item in your workspace. It is a way to rediscover content serendipitously, surfacing things you may have saved and forgotten about.

What does "Gather by" do?
The "Gather by" dropdown automatically arranges your content into visual groups based on a chosen attribute like creation date, creator, file type, or other metadata. It gives you a different lens on the same content.

How do I navigate around Explorer?
Use two fingers on your trackpad to pan, or hold down the mouse wheel. To zoom, pinch and spread on your trackpad, or hold Cmd/Ctrl and scroll your mouse wheel. Click the crosshairs icon to recenter your view.

Does Explorer work with large workspaces?
Yes. You can filter content to narrow down what is visible, and the "Gather by" grouping helps you navigate large collections. You can also scope Explorer to a specific folder or space to focus on a manageable subset.

Is Explorer available on mobile?
Explorer works best on desktop and tablet where you have room to pan, zoom, and navigate spatially. The full navigation controls require a trackpad or mouse.

How is this different from search?
Search is for finding something specific when you know what you are looking for. Explorer is for browsing, discovering connections, and rediscovering content you may have forgotten. They complement each other: search is targeted, Explorer is open-ended.