Mem0’s Advanced Retrieval provides additional control over how memories are selected and ranked during search. While the default search uses embedding-based semantic similarity, Advanced Retrieval introduces specialized options to improve recall, ranking accuracy, or filtering based on specific use case. You can enable any of the following modes independently or together:
  • Keyword Search
  • Reranking
  • Filtering
Each enhancement can be toggled independently via the search() API call. These flags are off by default. These are useful when building agents that require fine-grained retrieval control Keyword search expands the result set by including memories that contain lexically similar terms and important keywords from the query, even if they’re not semantically similar.

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When to use

  • You are searching for specific entities, names, or technical terms
  • When you need comprehensive coverage of a topic
  • You want broader recall at the cost of slight noise

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API Usage

results = client.search(
    query="What are my food preferences?",
    keyword_search=True,
    user_id="alex"
)

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Example

Without keyword_search:
  • “Vegetarian. Allergic to nuts.”
  • “Prefers spicy food and enjoys Thai cuisine”
With keyword_search=True:
  • “Vegetarian. Allergic to nuts.”
  • “Prefers spicy food and enjoys Thai cuisine”
  • “Mentioned disliking seafood during restaurant discussion”

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Trade-offs

  • Increases recall
  • May slightly reduce precision
  • Adds ~10ms latency

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Reranking

Reranking reorders the retrieved results using a deep semantic relevance model that improves the position of the most relevant matches.

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When to use

  • You rely on top-1 or top-N precision
  • When result order is critical for your application
  • You want consistent result quality across sessions

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API Usage

results = client.search(
    query="What are my travel plans?",
    rerank=True,
    user_id="alex"
)

​
Example

Without rerank:
  1. “Traveled to France last year”
  2. “Planning a trip to Japan next month”
  3. “Interested in visiting Tokyo restaurants”
With rerank=True:
  1. “Planning a trip to Japan next month”
  2. “Interested in visiting Tokyo restaurants”
  3. “Traveled to France last year”

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Trade-offs

  • Significantly improves result ordering accuracy
  • Ensures most relevant memories appear first
  • Adds ~150–200ms latency
  • Higher computational cost

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Filtering

Filtering allows you to narrow down search results by applying specific criteria from the set of retrieved memories.

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When to use

  • You require highly specific results
  • You are working with huge amount of data where noise is problematic
  • You require quality over quantity results

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API Usage

results = client.search(
    query="What are my dietary restrictions?",
    filter_memories=True,
    user_id="alex"
)

​
Example

Without filtering:
  • “Vegetarian. Allergic to nuts.”
  • “I enjoy cooking Italian food on weekends”
  • “Mentioned disliking seafood during restaurant discussion”
  • “Prefers to eat dinner at 7pm”
With filter_memories=True:
  • “Vegetarian. Allergic to nuts.”
  • “Mentioned disliking seafood during restaurant discussion”

​
Trade-offs

  • Maximizes precision (highly relevant results only)
  • May reduce recall (filters out some relevant memories)
  • Adds ~200-300ms latency
  • Best for focused, specific queries

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Combining Modes

You can combine all three retrieval modes as needed: 
results = client.search(
    query="What are my travel plans?",
    keyword_search=True,
    rerank=True,
    filter_memories=True,
    user_id="alex"
)
This configuration broadens the candidate pool with keywords, improves ordering via rerank, and finally cuts noise with filtering.
Combining all modes may add up to ~450ms latency per query.

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Performance Benchmarks

ModeApproximate Latency
keyword_search<10ms
rerank150–200ms
filter_memories200–300ms

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Best Practices & Limitations

  • Use keyword_search for broader recall when query context is limited
  • Use rerank to prioritize the top-most relevant result
  • Use filter_memories in production-facing or safety-critical agents
  • Combine filtering and reranking for maximum accuracy
  • Filters may eliminate all results—always handle the empty set gracefully
  • Filtering uses LLM evaluation and may be rate-limited depending on your plan
You can enable or disable these search modes by passing the respective parameters to the search method. There is no required sequence for these modes, and any combination can be used based on your needs.
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