Searchless FAQs

Question 1

What is Searchless and how does it improve document management?

Accepted Answer

Searchless transforms your Paperless-ngx instance into a conversational AI assistant. Instead of manual keyword searches or filtering, you can ask natural language questions to find, summarize, and extract information from your documents, making your archive an active knowledge base.

Question 2

Is Searchless secure and compatible with existing setups?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Searchless operates in a read-only mode, ensuring zero destructive actions on your documents and never downloading binary PDFs. It's optimized for Open WebUI with strict JSON schema and integrates seamlessly via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Question 3

What kind of questions can I ask my documents with Searchless?

Accepted Answer

You can ask for specific documents ('List the last 5 documents from Amazon'), conceptual information ('Find all software subscriptions I have'), or even request data extraction and summaries ('How much did I spend on mobility in February 2024?', 'Summarize the cancellation terms for my gym contract').

Question 4

What are the prerequisites for setting up Searchless?

Accepted Answer

To get started, you'll need an existing Paperless-ngx instance, Docker and Docker Compose for deployment, and a Google Gemini API Key for embeddings. Documents should also be properly parsed (OCR) and have high-quality tags in Paperless-ngx.

Question 5

How does Searchless find relevant documents?

Accepted Answer

It employs a powerful hybrid search strategy, combining Paperless-ngx's exact metadata filtering (tags, correspondents, dates) with semantic vector search using Gemini embeddings. This allows it to understand context and meaning, finding documents even when exact terms aren't present.

Searchless

Searchless

Key Features

Use Cases

Key Features

Use Cases