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Card Grouping Board ①: Precisely Filter Cards from a Massive Collection

💡 The Card Grouping Board is an extremely powerful card filter. You can filter the cards you need out of a massive collection by multiple attributes such as card source, color, tag, and creation date, then browse, edit, and manage them all in one place.

Card Grouping Board floating panel Card Grouping Board floating panel

1 How to Open the Card Grouping Board

Card Grouping Board

In the mind map sidebar, click the card icon (as shown above).

Opening the card filter board in mind map mode Opening the card filter board in mind map mode

Opening the card filter board in document mode Opening the card filter board in document mode

2 Filter the Cards of a Specific Study Set / Mind Map / Document by card source

Filter for specific cards by their source — study set, document, or mind map — and you can refine the results further using group conditions.

3 Filter Specific Cards by group

MarginNote supports a variety of card grouping conditions so you can quickly find the specific cards you need.

Card source: filter cards from a specific study set / mind map / document Card source: filter cards from a specific study set / mind map / document

Group: filter cards that meet specific conditions Group: filter cards that meet specific conditions

3.1 Which Card Attributes Can You Group By?

color 🖼️ Image. MarginNote offers 16 selectable card colors in total.
tags - 🖼️ Image - 🖼️ Image - 🖼️ Image
document 🖼️ Image > ⓘ If card source is already set to a document, there will be only one group here.
document table of contents 🖼️ Image > ⓘ If the table of contents contains indentation, the corresponding groups will be nested accordingly.
creation date 🖼️ Image
modification date 🖼️ Image
title link 🖼️ Image > ⓘ For more about title links, see: [Card Links ④
compound search 🖼️ Image > ⓘ Includes both the card's title and content.
When you select a specific document while filtering by card source, grouping additionally supports 2 more card attributes:
mind map status 🖼️ Image
extend note/excerpt 🖼️ Image

After setting your grouping conditions, click the funnel icon on the right to filter for the groups you need:

Grouping by card color Grouping by card color

Grouping by the tags a card contains Grouping by the tags a card contains

Grouping by the source document of a card Grouping by the source document of a card

Grouping by a card's position in the document's table of contents. Grouping by a card's position in the document's table of contents.

Grouping by the date a card was created Grouping by the date a card was created

Grouping by a card's last modification date. Grouping by a card's last modification date.

Grouping by whether a card contains a particular title link Grouping by whether a card contains a particular title link

Grouping by whether a card has been added to the mind map Grouping by whether a card has been added to the mind map

Grouping by whether a card is an extend note or an excerpt Grouping by whether a card is an extend note or an excerpt

Searching by whether a card contains a particular keyword Searching by whether a card contains a particular keyword

You can use "/" to divide tag hierarchy → parent tag / child tag You can use "/" to divide tag hierarchy → parent tag / child tag

When tags form a hierarchy, the corresponding groups are nested accordingly When tags form a hierarchy, the corresponding groups are nested accordingly

3.2 Why Are There first-level and second-level Groups?

Grouping supports two levels of nesting, making card filtering more efficient and precise. For example:

  • To filter the red cards in Document A: set the first-level group to document and the second-level group to color.
  • To filter the blue cards that carry the #high-frequency-exam-point tag: set the first-level group to color and the second-level group to tags.

First-level group First-level group

Second-level group Second-level group

4 Search Cards

You can search cards by keyword; the search covers a card's entire content (title + comments). Search can be used together with card source and group.

5 Edit and Manage Cards

Once you have filtered out the specific cards you need in the board, you can multi-select them for batch editing and management — for example, changing their color or tags, or applying merge, delete, and more.

6 Generate a Mind Map from the Board

Select cards in the board and drag them outside the board to automatically generate a new mind map structure (as a copy). This is ideal for organizing your own personal collections (such as a mistake notebook, an art album, and so on). For details, see: Card Grouping Board ②: Automatically Generate a Mind Map from the Board to Build a Personal Knowledge Collection.