Search Perplexity chats
TL;DR
About
Perplexity builds each thread's title from your first question, so months later the thread you want sits under wording you forgot, or its useful answer came four follow-ups in. The Library page has a search icon for this, and Perplexity said in February 2026 that past-thread search no longer needs exact keywords and can land on an answer inside a follow-up. None of its developer APIs touch your own history, and search_chats runs that same Library search in your signed-in browser. Each hit returns its title, Perplexity's snippet, the last update and a chatId. Say a consultant spent last spring on EU battery passport rules. Searching battery passport turns up four threads, and the newest one's chatId goes to get_chat_messages for the questions and answers behind a client memo. Source links stay behind, so the citations mean reopening the thread. Only the first page of results comes back, so a rare word beats a broad one like regulation.
Input
query requiredSearch term, matched against thread titles and answer text.
Output
chats requiredquery requiredhasMore requiredWhether more matching threads exist beyond the ones returned here.
Example output
Shape only: placeholder values generated from the output schema, not a real run.
{
"chats": [
{
"mode": "…",
"title": "Example",
"chatId": "abc123",
"status": "…",
"isUnread": true,
"contextId": "abc123",
"updatedAt": "2026-01-15T09:30:00Z",
"searchPreview": "…"
}
],
"query": "…",
"hasMore": true
}FAQ
Ask Perplexity
Ask Perplexity a question and get back three things the answer alone cannot tell you apart: the answer itself, the research steps Perplexity says it took to write it, and every page its search returned — not only the ones the answer cited. That split is the point. `sources` is the candidate pool, in the order the thread's Links view lists it, each with its publisher, title and snippet. `citations` is what the answer actually cited inline, each with the real destination URL, the chip as shown (a "+N" groups further sources that are not exposed individually) and whether Perplexity marks the domain as trusted. So `sources` minus `citations` is what Perplexity retrieved and then passed over, while a URL in neither was never retrieved at all — which is what you need to see how a topic, brand or product gets described and who gets credited. Headings, bullet lists and comparison tables come back as readable text, and `threadUrl` links the thread so any answer can be audited afterwards. `researchSteps` is Perplexity's own account of what it set out to look up, written for the reader in the interface language, such as "Checking why ABS might reduce stopping distance on wet roads". The literal queries its search issued are not published anywhere on the thread, so they are not returned and no field pretends to hold them. Treat one run as a single draw rather than a measurement: the same question can search differently, answer differently and cite different pages next time, so ask more than once before concluding anything. Perplexity's own free-tier ask rate limit can gate a request instead of answering it, answering "Sign up and repeat your request." instead. This can happen whether or not the browser is signed in — a live test confirmed the gate firing on a genuinely signed-in free-tier account, so signing in is not a guaranteed fix, only a paid plan is known to avoid it. The script names that state rather than returning an empty answer.
Delete Perplexity chat
Permanently delete one Perplexity thread from your recent history, by the chatId returned from list_chats.
List Perplexity chats
List your recent Perplexity threads (most recent first), as shown in the account's sidebar.