Described is a technology by which private content maintained behind a firewall (e.g., in a “mesh”) may be searched, browsed, and accessed via an index that exists outside of the firewall. Searching of the index may include checking permissions of a user against permissions associated with metadata in the index, e.g., per watch folder into which file content is added. When content is selected, e.g., by clicking on a search result, a request is made. An application polls for such requests, and when detected, pushes a copy of the content through the firewall to the requester. The search may be performed over more than one index, with aggregated search results returned.