When searching from within a category (community or knowledge base), I know that the query is automatically filtered to content IN that category. What I notice now is that you cannot remove that filter? IT is not possible to change the query to the entire content in the community.IT is NOT intuitive that the filters are bold when applied and clicking again will remove the filter and bold styling. A checkbox would be more obvious. Once all the filters are cleared, the url still has the query constrained to the current category.Am I doing something wrong?Is it possible to turn off the automatic filtering of queries from within categories?

Expert ⭐️

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How to remove all search filters

Forum|Forum|25 days ago
August 26, 2026
5 replies
104 views

When searching from within a category (community or knowledge base), I know that the query is automatically filtered to content IN that category.

What I notice now is that you cannot remove that filter? IT is not possible to change the query to the entire content in the community.

IT is NOT intuitive that the filters are bold when applied and clicking again will remove the filter and bold styling. A checkbox would be more obvious.
Once all the filters are cleared, the url still has the query constrained to the current category.

Am I doing something wrong?

Is it possible to turn off the automatic filtering of queries from within categories?

Best answer by revathimenon

Hi @Alistair FIeld & @atwhite

To answer your question - yes, this is the current behaviour.

When searching from within a category, the query automatically scopes to that category and there's no native way to remove that constraint from within the page itself. We completely understand this isn't the most intuitive experience and can see how frustrating it would be when you're trying to broaden your search.
For now, the workaround is to use the main community search bar, which searches across the full community without any category filter applied.
I’ve already shared this feedback with our team internally and they are reviewing it. I don't have any timelines to share just yet, but I do suggest submitting an idea for this so we can maintain this feedback more formally and continue follow ups.

atwhite

Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️

@Alistair FIeld This is an interesting quirk I had not noticed! Thanks for calling it out.

I just tried and can confirm I am experiencing the same thing. I agree that the bolded text is not as intuitive as it could be to indicate an active filter. I also agree that since clicking it removes the bold, it does seem like the intended behavior is that this would remove the filter. However, even though the search URL changes and seems to omit the filter, the search results don’t change. The same is true if I use the “clear all” link.

I have to start a clean search from the search page to get fresh results.

The filters with checkboxes all work as expected, thankfully.

revathimenon

Gainsight Community Lead

Hi @Alistair FIeld

I’m looking into this with the team and will revert here very soon!

Where focus goes, energy flows.

revathimenonAnswer

Gainsight Community Lead

Hi @Alistair FIeld & @atwhite

To answer your question - yes, this is the current behaviour.

When searching from within a category, the query automatically scopes to that category and there's no native way to remove that constraint from within the page itself. We completely understand this isn't the most intuitive experience and can see how frustrating it would be when you're trying to broaden your search.
For now, the workaround is to use the main community search bar, which searches across the full community without any category filter applied.
I’ve already shared this feedback with our team internally and they are reviewing it. I don't have any timelines to share just yet, but I do suggest submitting an idea for this so we can maintain this feedback more formally and continue follow ups.

Where focus goes, energy flows.

atwhite

Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks, @revathimenon! I’ve added the idea here:

Alistair FIeldAuthor

Expert ⭐️

@atwhite thanks for opening up the idea.

I dug into the aloglia call and I can see that the query always has the forum:xx parameter.

I could not figure out how to remove it.

It is hard code applied rather than as a facet value.

below is a screen shot after removing the category filter from the left hand side menu.

The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few. 🖖

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