July 7, 2009


After we’ve shown you Rules and Alerts in our last Outlook Tip, we will provide you with the promised search feature in case you can’t find an e-mail. This feature is divided in Instant Search and Advanced Find. Don’t worry, we’ll explain you step by step what to do with the two search features and how you can use them.

Instant Search
This feature allows you to search in a defined folder for a defined text. Messages that contain the text that you typed are displayed in the Instant Search Results pane with the search text highlighted.




1.) Click the folder to search in.
2.) Type your search text in the Instant Search box. To narrow your search, type more characters.
3.) Messages that contain the text that you type appear in the results with the search text highlighted.
4.) Click to clear the Instant Search box, and then start a new search.
5.) Click to widen your search to all folders in Mail.

If you want to add more search criteria click Expand the Query Builder.



Advanced Find
Your Instant Search doesn’t find any results? Then you should use Advanced Find. Especially if you have multiple criteria or e-mails e.g. you will find all e-mails from a particular person in a defined period.

- In the menu go to Tools – Find – Advanced Find (Outlook 2003) or Instant Search – Advanced Find (Outlook 2007). The fastest way is to press CTRL+SHIFT+F from anywhere in Outlook.



- Now you can define your search more precisely:
Look for: Here you can define the Outlook item, you are looking for.
In: Click on Browse and you can specify multiple folders to be searched.
Search for (tab Messages): Enter your keyword(s)
In (tab Messages): Here you determine which area of the element shall be searched.
From: Do you know the sender of the message? Click From and select the contact of your address book.
Sent To: If you know the receivers of the message, you can type them here.
Time: You can define the period in which to search.

Note: Depending on the Outlook items you browse (messages, tasks, contacts, etc.) the selection options of the Advanced Search will be changed.