diff --git a/src/lib/memory/ftsQuery.ts b/src/lib/memory/ftsQuery.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..f99af4f703
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/lib/memory/ftsQuery.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+/**
+ * Sanitize a free-text query into an FTS5 MATCH expression.
+ * Strips FTS5 syntax characters (?, !, ", *, :, parentheses, brackets, etc.)
+ * and quotes each whitespace-separated term so natural-language queries with
+ * punctuation don't raise "fts5: syntax error" from SQLite.
+ */
+export function toFts5MatchQuery(query: string): string {
+  const terms = query
+    .split(/\s+/)
+    .map((term) => term.replace(/["*():\[\]{}!?\^~+.-]/g, ""))
+    .filter((term) => term.length > 0);
+  if (terms.length === 0) return '""';
+  return terms.map((term) => `"${term}"`).join(" AND ");
+}
diff --git a/src/lib/memory/retrieval.ts b/src/lib/memory/retrieval.ts
index bbb5e7c3da..eec63ee6aa 100644
--- a/src/lib/memory/retrieval.ts
+++ b/src/lib/memory/retrieval.ts
@@ -84,13 +84,7 @@ function fetchMemoriesByIds(ids: string[]): Memory[] {
  * each whitespace-separated term so natural-language queries with punctuation
  * don't raise "fts5: syntax error".
  */
-export function toFts5MatchQuery(query: string): string {
-  const terms = query
-    .split(/\s+/)
-    .map((term) => term.replace(/["*():\[\]{}!?\^~+-]/g, ""))
-    .filter((term) => term.length > 0);
-  return terms.map((term) => `"${term}"`).join(" AND ");
-}
+export { toFts5MatchQuery } from "./ftsQuery";
 
 interface FtsColConfig {  apiKeyCol: string;
   expiresCol: string;
diff --git a/src/lib/memory/vectorStore.ts b/src/lib/memory/vectorStore.ts
index 92f706a3d4..87f3ce187c 100644
--- a/src/lib/memory/vectorStore.ts
+++ b/src/lib/memory/vectorStore.ts
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ import {
   countMemoryReindexPending,
 } from "../localDb";
 import { getDbInstance } from "../db/core";
+import { toFts5MatchQuery } from "./ftsQuery";
 import { logger } from "../../../open-sse/utils/logger.ts";
 import { sanitizeErrorMessage } from "../../../open-sse/utils/error.ts";
 
@@ -344,7 +345,7 @@ class VectorStoreImpl implements VectorStore {
         encodeVector(vector),
         { apiKeyId: apiKeyId ?? null },
         k,
-        queryText,
+        toFts5MatchQuery(queryText),
         k,
         k,
       ) as Array<{
diff --git a/tests/unit/memory/fts5-query-sanitize.test.ts b/tests/unit/memory/fts5-query-sanitize.test.ts
index ca8ee46a46..51a0b96404 100644
--- a/tests/unit/memory/fts5-query-sanitize.test.ts
+++ b/tests/unit/memory/fts5-query-sanitize.test.ts
@@ -21,11 +21,11 @@ describe("memory retrieval toFts5MatchQuery", () => {
     );
   });
 
-  it("keeps punctuation-only input as a single quoted term", () => {
-    assert.strictEqual(toFts5MatchQuery("???! ..."), '"..."');
+  it("keeps punctuation-only input as a non-matching quoted phrase", () => {
+    assert.strictEqual(toFts5MatchQuery("???! ..."), '""');
   });
 
-  it("returns empty string for empty input", () => {
-    assert.strictEqual(toFts5MatchQuery(""), "");
+  it("returns non-matching quoted phrase for empty input", () => {
+    assert.strictEqual(toFts5MatchQuery(""), '""');
   });
 });