Searching in Outlook for Windows (“new” Outlook) might look as simple as typing a keyword into a search bar, but there’s a surprising amount of power under the hood. The search function can comb through email subjects, message bodies, attachments, contacts, and files. To effectively search Outlook for Windows, understanding its unique functionalities is crucial.
When you search Outlook for Windows, it’s important to know that the search function is capable of many advanced filtering options.
Searching in Outlook is powerful but often vexes people for a few reasons:
- Outlook search is different from web searches from Google, Bing etc.
- Search works differently for Microsoft hosted mailboxes vs other mailboxes.
- Many searches are done online at the cloud mailbox, not locally on the computer. If the computer is offline, Outlook (new) searches might not work properly or at all.
The beginning
Search sits on the top row and looks very simple. Type in a word or two and Outlook will find matching items.
But there’s a lot more power available than just that.
How to Effectively Search Outlook for Windows
Locate the Search Bar: In the new Outlook for Windows, the search box is at the very top of the Outlook window (in the title bar area, above the ribbon).
To begin a search, simply click in this Search bar at the top of Outlook.
Recent searches will appear in the pull-down list.
Make sure to adjust the search options when you search Outlook for Windows to refine your results.
What to search for
- All – all folders in the mailbox
- Mail – email folders only
- Files – files in the OneDrive account.
- People – was known as Contacts.
Where to search
How much of the mailbox to search in, called the search scope. The default is “Current Mailbox” which might return more results than you need.
Pick the smallest scope that makes sense because it’s faster and results are easier to scan. Quite often, you’ll only need to search the Inbox.
The default search scope can be changed at Settings | General | Search.
At the moment, the new Outlook does not support “search all mailboxes” at once; you have to search each mailbox separately.
Perform a Simple Search
Start typing a keyword, name, or phrase related to what you want to find. Outlook will immediately show Suggested Searches and contacts based on your history.
By keyword
Type a name or words from an email. Outlook searches across email subjects, message bodies, and even attachment contents for matches.
Using filters can greatly enhance your ability to search Outlook for Windows efficiently.
Outlook looks beyond the work typed. For instance, searching for “project” finds emails that have project or projects, projecting, etc.) anywhere in the subject, body, or attachments.
Searching for multiple words makes Outlook find items that have any those words. For example, a search for ‘Fred Dagg’ will find any items with the word ‘Fred’ or ‘Dagg’ as well as anything that has both words. In nerd speak, Outlook assumes a logical OR i.e. ‘Fred OR Dagg’.
To search for a phrase or combination of words, use double-quotes i.e “Fred Dagg” or “Microsoft Office”.
To find items with all the search terms use AND (in capitals) e.g “Microsoft AND Office” will find items with both words. “Fred AND sheep AND fence” returns only items that have all those words anywhere in the email.
Keyword searches will include results from searchable attachments (Word, Excel, PowerPoint docs, PDF etc.).
By sender
Many users find that they can search Outlook for Windows by simply using the sender’s name.
Type a person’s name or email address. Outlook will return all messages from or mentioning that address.
For a more precise sender search, use the prefix from:
For example, typing from:fred@freddagg.com limits results to emails sent from Fred. If you start typing a name after from: Outlook also suggests contacts to autocomplete.
By Receiver
Or search for emails sent to a specific email address using the to: prefix e.g. to: team@freddagg.com
By subject
Enter a few unique words from the email’s subject. This is often enough to find the email.
For example, to find a message titled “Project Update Meeting,” you might just search “Project Update”. Outlook’s search works best with a few keywords rather than full sentences. Y
ou can also explicitly search the subject line by using subject:. For example, subject:"Project Update" will return emails whose subject includes that exact phrase.
Reviewing Search Results
After you press Enter or select a suggestion, Outlook displays the search results in the message list.
By default, results are typically sorted by date (with the most recent emails on top). Outlook may also highlight “Top Results” – a few highly relevant emails that it thinks you’re looking for, above the chronological list. These are marked as “Top Results” and are followed by “All Results” in date order. You can scroll through the list to see all matching items.
Narrowing the search
Above the reading pane are some quick filters to narrow down a long list of results.
- Has attachments
- Unread
- To me
- Mentions me
- Flagged
- High Importance
