How to find a mod when you don't know its name
Search by the effect you want, not the name. Repository search only matches titles and tags, so type the feature as an author would have written it in the description — or describe the outcome to a mod finder that reads descriptions instead. If you're trying to recall a mod you used before, searching by what it changed is usually faster than searching your memory.
Four ways to get there
Search the repository by feature words
Thunderstore, Nexus and the Steam Workshop all let you search free text. Try the noun the author would have used — “backpack”, “minimap”, “quota” — rather than your description of the problem, then sort by downloads and read the top ten.
Falls down when: the author named the feature differently than you would, or the mod bundles your feature inside a larger pack whose title never mentions it.
Ask the community
The game's subreddit and modding Discord are good at obscure requests, because a person can read intent. Say the game, what you want to change, and what you already tried.
Falls down when: you need an answer now, or when you land on an old thread — recommendations from two years ago are frequently abandoned mods by the time you read them.
Google the effect plus the game
Searching “[game] mod that lets you [effect]” pulls in list articles and forum threads that a repository search never sees, which is useful when the mod's own page is badly written.
Falls down when: the results are ranked list posts optimised for traffic rather than accuracy, and nobody has checked whether the mods still load.
Describe it to a mod finder
A natural-language mod search takes the sentence you'd say out loud and matches it against the game's real catalog, so you never have to guess the author's vocabulary. Ask for several things at once and each gets its own answer.
Falls down when: the game isn't covered, or nobody has built the mod — in which case no amount of searching will produce it.
How to word it so it actually matches
- Say what should change, not what annoys you. “I want to keep my items when I die” gives a searcher something to match; “dying is unfair” doesn't.
- Avoid negatives. “But don't change enemy spawns” reads as a separate request, and nobody publishes a mod whose purpose is not changing enemy spawns. Leave it out and filter the results yourself.
- Split unrelated wishes. “More upgrades, and let them show up in the level too” is two different mods; asking for it as one sentence often finds neither.
- Name the surface if it matters. “More slots in my backpack” and “more storage in the world” are different mods, and “more space” matches both badly.
Trying to remember a mod you used before
Don't search your memory, search the change. Write down exactly what the mod did to the game, then look for that behaviour — the name usually appears the moment you see the right description. If you still have the old install, the mod's folder name under BepInEx/plugins or your mod manager's profile is the fastest answer of all.
Common questions
- Can I find a mod just by describing what it does?
- Yes. A natural-language mod search reads the description of every package in a game's catalog, so a description of the outcome is enough — you don't need the title or the author.
- What if I only remember what the mod changed, not its name?
- That's the easier case. Search the behaviour: what appeared on screen, what stopped happening, what got bigger. Titles are arbitrary, but behaviour is what everyone writes about.
- Does searching by feature work on Nexus and the Steam Workshop too?
- Partly. Both match text in titles, tags and descriptions, so feature nouns help. Neither understands a sentence, so keep the query to two or three words there.
- How do I tell whether the mod I found still works?
- Check the last-updated date against the game's most recent patch, and check whether the author marked it deprecated. A mod untouched across a major update is the usual reason a modded game stops launching.
- What if the mod doesn't exist?
- That happens, and it's worth finding out quickly. If a description search across the whole catalog turns up nothing, the honest answer is usually that nobody has built it yet.
Describe the mod you're looking for
Pick your game and say what you want changed, in whatever words come naturally.