How to Search Outlook by Sender, Date, Keyword, Size and More

“Where’d my email go? It just disappeared.” It’s shocking how many times I’ve heard this over my career. But not as shocking as how many people who don’t realize that they can easily search for a specific email in Outlook.

After reading this guide on how to search Outlook email by date, sender, keyword, and more, you’ll be able to find any email in Outlook too. We’re going to give you all the Outlook email search tips you can handle.

Are Your Emails Indexed?

For the best email search results, let’s make sure Outlook has indexed everything.

What’s indexing? Just like the index of a book has all the topics listed and where to find them, Outlook indexing creates a database like that. It’s easier for programs to search through a database than a bunch of freeform text.

If the number of items to be indexed is anything but zero, give it a few minutes. That will ensure that the search is as complete as possible.

Indexing does take some resources. If you find that it slows down Outlook or your computer too much, you canturn off indexing to get better computer performance.

Permanently Add Search Tab

Wouldn’t it be great if we could easily get into the search tab without having to click in the search bar every time? Let’s do that.

In the Search Tools tab, we can easily set the scope of the search. On the left side, we’ll see that we can set the scope toAll Mailboxes,Current Mailbox,Current Folder,Subfolders,orAll Outlook Items.

All Mailboxes– choose this scope if we have shared mailboxes or other accounts in Outlook. Some people may have both their work and personal email accounts in Outlook.

Current Mailbox– choose this scope to keep the search within just the one mailbox. Ensure that the mailbox is selected in the left pane of Outlook.

Current Folder– this scope will limit the search to the folder that is currently selected in the left pane of Outlook.

Subfolders– this limits the scope to the folders under whatever folder is selected in the left pane.

All Outlook Items– The most open scope will apply the search to all emails, contacts, calendar items, and tasks. Because of the large amount of data, searches on this scope can be slow and yield unnecessary results. Use this scope sparingly.

Search Operators In Outlook

Search results can be made more specific by using search operators.

To find a specific phrase, put double quote marks around the search phrase.

Example:“TPS report”

To find items that must have two or more words in it, but not necessarily right next to each other or in the order written, use theANDoperator.

Example: workANDweekend

To find items containing a keyword and exclude items that contain a different keyword, use theNOToperator.

Example: saturdayNOTgreat

Looking for something that could have one word or another? Try theORoperator.

Example: giraffeORproduct

All these operators can be combined to make the search as specific as we’d like. We could have something as complex as “TPS report” AND weekend OR giraffe NOT great.

Search Outlook By Keyword

The easiest search Outlook email is the keyword search. It’s most simply done from theInstant Searchfield at the top of our inbox.

Search Outlook By Sender

To search Outlook email by sender:

Search Outlook By Subject

To search Outlook email by subject:

Search Outlook By Date

To search Outlook emails by date:

We can also use the received: operator with calendar dates (received:dd/mm/yyyy) or day names (received:tuesday). When a day name is used, Outlook will search only on the most recent of that day. So just this past Tuesday, not all the Tuesdays ever.

Search Outlook For Items With Attachments

To search Outlook email by attachments:

We could also type hasattachments:no to exclude results that have attachments from the results.

Search Outlook By Category

Using the Category tool to organize emails is under-utilized.

This can also be typed in manually. Just change the color to suit the category. For example, to search the red category, we’d type category:=”Red Category”. For blue, we’d type category:=”Blue Category” and so on.

Search Outlook Email By Recipient

This is the way to search for emails based on who they were sent to.

Search By Read Or Not Read

You can search Outlook emails by whether they’ve been read or unread.

Search By Flagged

Using flags to mark important emails helps stay on top of things.

Search By Importance

See only important emails in Outlook as follows.

Combining Search Options

All of the above search options can be combined. For example, if we’re looking for items that are important and flagged, we can enter importance:high followupflag:followup flag in the search bar.

This could either be typed in or just click on the Important button and then the Flagged button.

More Search Options

Click on theMorebutton in the Search tab and we’ll see over 20 more ways to search.

Mostly, it will put a drop-down menu under the search bar with the options that the specific search type supports.

more-added-drop-down.png

Advanced Search Options

We can access well over a hundred different search options going far beyond what we’ve covered. We might never use this, but it’s good to know it’s here.

Take some time and look around here. It’s overwhelming how much can be done. We can search based on any field of any Outlook item. There are a few hundred different things we can search on.

Aren’t you amazed at how extensive and powerful Outlook’s search capabilities are? Did you even know that was all possible? Most people probably never use a tenth of all the things that Outlook can do. Use this as a springboard into learning what else Outlook can do for you.

You cancreate your own Outlook shortcuts for email tasks. Set upOutlook rules to organize email into folders. Or evenschedule an email to be sent at a specific time! Having Outlook just read emails is a bit like using a Ferrari to get groceries.

Guy has been published online and in print newspapers, nominated for writing awards, and cited in scholarly papers due to his ability to speak tech to anyone, but still prefers analog watches.Read Guy’s Full Bio

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