Create, switch and organise cases

A Case is the container that groups your searches, Bookmarks and Reports. You choose the active search context with the Case selector, and you administer every case from the Case Management modal. This page covers creating, switching, sharing, securing and deleting cases.

For what Forensic Mode does to a case’s record-keeping, see the Forensic Mode guide. For an at-a-glance rollup of activity per case, see the Case Summary section below.

Case Management modal open over the History page, showing the case table

Cases at a glance

Every account begins with one built-in Default case. The Default case cannot be renamed or deleted, and its sharing state is fixed to private (see The Default case).

Beyond Default, you create as many cases as a search needs. Each user-created case carries a numeric case ID, and can be shared, secured with a password, and have Forensic Mode toggled independently.

Open Case Management

Open the Case Management modal from the Case Management item in the left navigation. The modal overlays the current page; select Close at the bottom right to dismiss it and return to the underlying page.

The modal contains:

• A header row with the modal title and a + Add Case button (top right, in the coral-orange accent colour).
• A case table, one row per case.
• A Close button at the bottom right.

The case table

Each row in the case table describes one case across these columns:

Column	What it shows
#	The numeric case ID for a user-created case; N/A for the built-in Default case.
NAME	The case name.
CREATED AT	The timestamp the case was created.
SHARE	Whether the case is Private or shared (Public).
FORENSIC MODE	The per-case Forensic Mode switch.
PRIVATE KEY	An indicator of the case’s key/password state.
ACTIONS	Per-row actions such as Edit Name, Set Password / Change Password and Delete Case.

The SHARE, FORENSIC MODE and PRIVATE KEY headers each carry a ? help indicator; hovering it reveals a tooltip explaining that column.

Create a case

1. Open Case Management from the left navigation.
2. Select + Add Case in the top-right of the modal.
3. Fill in the Create a Case dialog, then choose Create (or Close to cancel).

The Create a Case dialog: a case-name field above an Options group with Share Case with Teammates, Enable Forensic Mode, and Use custom password checkboxes

The Create a Case dialog has a Give a Case Name: text field and an Options group with three checkboxes:

Option	What it does
Share Case with Teammates	Marks the new case as shareable with your team from the outset. This option is ticked in the captured dialog.
Enable Forensic Mode (Case History Logging & Bookmarking)	Turns on Forensic Mode for the case, so it logs case history and retains bookmarking. A ? help icon sits beside the label.
Use custom password	Sets a password on the case at creation time rather than adding one later.

Once created, the new case appears as a row in the case table with its own numeric case ID.

Note

The Enable Forensic Mode option’s own label — “Case History Logging & Bookmarking” — names what Forensic Mode retains. See the Forensic Mode guide for the full behaviour.

Switch the active case

You choose which case is the active search context with the Case selector.

On the Bookmarks, Reports and History surfaces, a FILTER BY CASE dropdown lets you scope those views to a single case. The cases offered there are your account’s active cases — the same cases listed in Case Management and in the Case Summary table.

Rename a case

In the case table, use the Edit Name action in the row’s ACTIONS column to rename a user-created case.

Note

The Default case has no Edit Name action and cannot be renamed.

Share a case

The SHARE column controls a case’s visibility:

• A user-created case shows a SHARE toggle. Off (grey) corresponds to Private / not shared. Toggling it on makes the case Public / shareable.
• The Default case shows the fixed text Private rather than a toggle, and cannot be shared.

Who can share cases

Accounts are either single or team (per Lee, 2026-07-08):

• Team accounts can share cases among team members, draw on one common pool of Credits, and are controlled by a team leader.
• Single accounts do not share cases.

Case sharing is therefore a team-account capability, controlled by the team leader.

Caution

The exact audience and scope of a Public case beyond the team — for example, link-based access versus wider visibility — is not yet confirmed.

Secure a case: passwords and the private key

You secure a case by setting a custom password on it — either when you create the case (the Use custom password option in the Create a Case dialog) or afterwards from the case’s row. That password is what creates the case’s private key: the encryption key is derived from the password you choose, and UserSearch stores neither the password nor the key. (per Lee, 2026-07-10)

What securing a case does:

• A case password encrypts that case’s Bookmarks on the UserSearch server, so the saved Bookmarks are stored encrypted rather than in the clear. (per Lee, 2026-07-10)
• In the case table, a case whose row action reads Set Password has no password set yet; a case whose row action reads Change Password already has one. Use Set Password to add a password, or Change Password to replace an existing one.
• The PRIVATE KEY column shows a check indicator for each case.

Danger

Because the key is built from your password, if you lose the password the private key derived from it is gone too, and the encrypted data can never be unencrypted — it is permanently unrecoverable. There is no reset or recovery path, so record the password somewhere safe before you rely on it. (per Lee, 2026-07-10)

Note

The meaning of the green-versus-white check in the PRIVATE KEY column is not documented beyond the facts above.

Forensic Mode per case

Each case has its own FORENSIC MODE switch in the case table, toggled independently for that case. Forensic Mode is the property that determines whether a case keeps a durable record of the search.

• Forensic Mode ON — the case retains bookmarking and history and provides chain-of-custody. (per Lee, 2026-07-08)
• Forensic Mode OFF (a private case) — the case keeps no bookmarking and no history; it is effectively ephemeral. (per Lee, 2026-07-08)

Caution

A separate Forensic Mode control also appears in the Dashboard header. How the header control and the per-case switches relate — whether the header sets a global default, mirrors the active case’s setting, or is independent — is not yet confirmed.

For the full trade-off and how it affects Bookmarks and History, see the Forensic Mode guide.

Delete a case

Use the Delete Case action in a user-created case’s ACTIONS column to remove it.

Caution

The Default case has no Delete Case action and cannot be deleted. Deleting a case removes the search container that groups its searches, Bookmarks and Reports — treat it as destructive.

The Default case

The built-in Default case is constrained relative to the cases you create:

• It cannot be renamed — no Edit Name action.
• It cannot be deleted — no Delete Case action.
• Its SHARE state is fixed to Private (shown as text, not a toggle).
• Its # is N/A — it has no numeric case ID, consistent with being a built-in system case.

It can still have its password changed via the Change Password action.

Case Summary

The Case Summary is a shared table that aggregates per-case totals. It appears on the Bookmarks, Reports and History pages, sitting below the main table with a three-dot (kebab) overflow menu at its far right.

Case Summary panel below the Bookmarks table

Its columns, left to right, are:

Column	What it shows
CASE NAME	The case’s name.
NUMBER OF BOOKMARKS	Count of Bookmarks saved to that case.
REPORTS CREATED	Count of Reports generated for that case.
LAST UPDATE	Timestamp of the case’s most recent activity, or N/A if it has none.

A LAST UPDATE of N/A indicates the case has no recorded activity to timestamp. The cases listed here are your account’s active cases — the same set offered in the FILTER BY CASE dropdown.

Note

A case can show 0 bookmarks even with Forensic Mode ON. Forensic Mode ON permits bookmarking and history retention, but it does not mean any bookmarks have been created yet.

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