Using Damus, was trying to find a user by public key but it only wanted to search by hash tags
Discussion
Ok cool. Damus will search for users by npub or by Nostr address when you paste either into the search field, and it will automatically show the profile (screenshots below). The hashtag search appears while you’re typing, and you can tap on it if you want. 
Huh this didn’t work for me but I don’t think I got a trimmed copy of the pubkey but of course I couldn’t see the beginning because it was too long 😨
Damus search is very basic still. Your best bet is to bookmark https://nostr.band and use that to search for users. You can then copy their addresses back to Damus to find them.
This is an excellent nostr search tool too:
Yea I do that a lot too, but I’m curious why pasting the npub didn’t work for him. I’ve found that the Nostur, Primal, and Plebstr iOS apps all have better search than Damus. Damus is still my go to, but search is a weak feature in it, and yet such an important feature for users.
“Not on enough relays” is almost always the answer.
Lol. On the other apps mentioned I can search for someone by name, even when I don’t follow them. On Damus it only works when I’m following them, or if I paste their npub or Nostr address. Whatever the other apps are doing, Damus needs to do that or figure out another better way. Search is too important.
nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s Who’s working to improve the Damus search capabilities?
Noone atm
nostr:npub1zafcms4xya5ap9zr7xxr0jlrtrattwlesytn2s42030lzu0dwlzqpd26k5 let’s add this pls 💜
a mix of nos.today and nostr.band would be nice.
having keywords/hashtags in a similar way to the Primal app, with some sorting features also
nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s has now gone down a ‘search’ rabbit hole. Yay!!! Something about inverted indexes… no one knows what it means but it’s provocative! nostr:npub1cj8znuztfqkvq89pl8hceph0svvvqk0qay6nydgk9uyq7fhpfsgsqwrz4u 😂
This has been one of the biggest gripes of new users when the first join. Search and discovery in Damus has been basically nonexistent. Hashtags, users, keywords, it appears as if #nostr doesn’t work!
Yes, known issue https://github.com/damus-io/damus/issues/1108
Cc nostr:npub1uapy44zhu5f0markfftt7m2z3gr2zwssq6h3lw8qlce0d5pjvhrs3q9pmv
Yeah, the search feature could be improved by a lot! Thanks for reporting, will work on it