> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.cyborg.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Get Encrypted Items

If you have added items to the index with the `contents` field, you can retrieve them via `get()`.

<Tip>The `contents` field is always returned as bytes, regardless of whether it was originally stored as a string or bytes. All contents are encoded to bytes and encrypted before storage.</Tip>

<CodeGroup>
  ```python Python icon="python" theme={null}
  # IDs of items to retrieve
  ids = ["item_20", "item_11"]
  include = ["contents", "metadata"]

  # Retrieve items from the encrypted index (index_key is required on every data operation)
  items = index.get(ids, include=include, index_key=index_key)

  print(items)
  # Example item (contents returned as bytes)
  # [{"id": "item_20", "contents": b"Hello, World!", "metadata": {"type": "txt"}},
  #  {"id": "item_11", "contents": b"Hello, Cyborg!", "metadata": {"type": "md"}}]
  ```
</CodeGroup>

## API Reference

For more information on getting items from an encrypted index, refer to the API reference:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Python API Reference" href="../../python/encrypted-index/get" icon="python">
    API reference for `get()` in Python
  </Card>
</CardGroup>


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