How do I search for an email address in Outlook?

Outlook has always been one of my favorite apps for managing and communicating with people online. It’s fast, efficient, and offers tons of useful features that you wouldn’t find elsewhere—such as being able to send files directly from your inbox without having to open up another program first. But despite its usefulness, it doesn’t have much functionality when it comes to searching for information within your messages.

If you are using Microsoft Office 365 (or any other version), then you may be familiar with the fact that Outlook will only show some of the emails you receive if they contain certain keywords. However, there are times where you would like to know whether or not someone sent you an email message containing those keywords but couldn’t remember exactly what was said. Or maybe you just want to see which emails were recently received by this contact so you can check them out later. You don’t need to worry anymore because we’re going to explain everything about how to perform these types of searches right here!

Why does search not work in Outlook 365?

In order to understand why search works differently in Outlook than it does in Gmail or Inbox, let’s take a look at how the two programs differ. When you create new emails in either service, you get the option to attach files to them. These attachments typically come from things such as documents, pictures, videos, PDFs, etc., but sometimes you might also attach links to websites that you visit frequently. This means that whenever you create a new email, you could potentially be sending it along with a link to something else related to that topic. And since both services save every single attachment associated with each individual email, the next time you log into your account, you can go back through all of your previous emails to view the file attached to each one.

This is great for helping you keep track of important business-related correspondence throughout the day, but it can also make it difficult to locate older emails quickly. For instance, say you use Google Chrome instead of Internet Explorer. If you used to have a habit of saving webpages with screenshots of articles you found interesting, you probably won’t even think twice before hitting “Save Page As…” when you stumble across a webpage you want to refer to again down the line. After doing that several hundred times over the course of a few months, you start to accumulate quite a collection of images saved to your hard drive. At this point, you no longer even realize that you can access them later simply by opening up a tab in your browser.

When you compare this scenario to Outlook, however, you will notice that clicking on “File" " Open Attachments…" opens up a window that lists all of the different kinds of files that were sent via email in chronological order. The benefit of this method is that you can scroll right to the bottom of the screen and immediately jump to the most recent item you received. Unfortunately, it takes away the ability to sort your entire archive based on whatever criteria you choose.

The same thing happens when you try to search for content inside your emails. If you type the name of the document, picture, video, website, or anything similar into the search field located above the toolbar, you will get a small preview with the corresponding text highlighted. However, the actual contents of the email itself aren’t displayed anywhere in the interface. So while you can tell whether or not the email contains the word you typed in, you still won’t actually be able to read the full message until after you click View All Results and select the appropriate entry.

There are a couple reasons why Outlook needs to remove the words you searched for from the email so that it doesn’t display them accidentally during your reading process. First off, the software uses predictive technology to determine what you are trying to convey based on what you already wrote. That way, it can prevent you from writing phrases that might cause confusion next time around. Also, once it knows that you are looking for a particular piece of text, it will automatically add it to the end of the preview section. Since you can’t actually read the whole email yet, the search feature isn’t needed at this stage. Instead, you need to wait until you are ready to review the entire thread.

It should be noted that although Outlook saves an image attachment separately and displays it alongside the original email you received, it doesn’t appear to store links in the same manner. Therefor, if the person who sent you the link sends you a second email saying that he changed his mind, you will never see the updated version unless you specifically ask him to resend the relevant portion of the original mail. To avoid this problem, you should consider downloading a copy of the email yourself and storing the downloaded file in the location where you usually save attachments. Then, you can use Windows File Search to scan through all of your folders and archives and find the latest version of the document linked to.

Why can't I search emails in Outlook on Mac?

As previously mentioned, Outlook has an extensive set of options available to help you manage your emails. One of these features is called Smart Lookup, which allows you to specify a keyword phrase that you are interested in locating. Once you enter the correct term into the search box, Outlook scans through your entire archive to find matching items. Depending on the size of your mailbox, this process can take minutes or hours, though.

But if you are working from home or otherwise unable to physically switch between your laptop and desktop computers, you probably prefer to search for emails wherever you happen to sit down. Fortunately, there is an easy workaround for this issue. Just head to Preferences " General " Advanced Options... and uncheck Enable smart lookup. Now you can continue browsing your emails whenever you please without worrying about wasting precious time waiting for Outlook to complete its task.

Where is the search contacts box in Outlook?

Searching for emails within Outlook requires you to navigate to the sidebar menu on the left side of the app and then selecting Find & Replace or Edit & Find. From there, you can highlight the part of the text you wish to search for and hit Enter. Alternatively, you can double-click on the desired string and then press F3 to bring up the Quick Find dialog box.

After entering the required data, you can adjust the settings by checking Show matches only in selected columns. The default setting allows you to narrow down your search results based on the sender, date/time, subject, and recipient fields. Finally, you can toggle the Preview button to turn on a live preview of the match. By pressing Esc, you can cancel the operation altogether and return to your current position within the thread.

To learn more about how to organize your contacts and improve productivity in Outlook, read our guide.

Outlook is one of your most important tools when it comes to staying organized and managing time effectively. But despite being such an integral part of your workday, you might find yourself asking “why can’t I just search for this email that I know exists somewhere?”

The answer is simple – you can! You just have to learn where to look first. Here are three ways to search for an email in Outlook without having to open up every single folder.

How do I search for an email on my phone?

If you're using Microsoft Teams instead of Outlook (or if both apps aren't installed), there isn't really any way to search for messages on your smartphone. The closest thing you'll get is searching by typing part of the sender name into the chat app. If someone sends you a message with their full name as the subject line (e.g., "John Smith" or "Jane Doe") then they will show up in your inbox as well.

Otherwise, try opening up Outlook on Windows 10, macOS, Android, iOS, or the web version of Outlook and tapping on the Search icon at the top right-hand corner of your screen. This should bring up a search box where you can type in keywords related to what you want to find. For example, you could type in "jane doe" to see whether John Smith sent her an email about something or you could type in "john smith" to see whether Jane has replied to him since last week.

Alternatively, you can also check out these tips for quickly searching through your entire Outlook mailbox.

How do I search for an email on my iPhone?

On iPhones, you don't actually have access to Outlook but Apple Mail does support basic searches. To start, tap on the Messages button while viewing your conversation history, go to Settings & Privacy & Contacts & Calendars, scroll down until you reach Advanced Contact Searches, and tap on Add another contact. Then enter the email address that you'd like to search for. When prompted, choose which fields you would like to include in the search query. Finally, select the field(s) that you wish to use for matching (i.e. From, Subject). Tap Next. Your results will be displayed below the text input box. Note that you cannot perform multiple simultaneous searches within the same conversation thread.

Why can't I search for an email in Outlook?

One good reason why you may not be able to search for an email in Outlook is because the feature simply doesn't exist yet. It looks like Microsoft hasn't added the functionality to its flagship productivity suite yet due to technical limitations. While we've seen some third-party add-ons that let you search for emails, including the popular Mailbox Email Finder and more recently, Paid Mailbox, other features remain elusive.

However, you can still search for emails in Outlook thanks to a few tricks. We've already covered how to search for an email in Outlook using Google Chrome, so here we'll take a closer look at two other methods that enable you to search for emails inside of the Outlook desktop client itself.

How do I search for a specific email in Outlook?

In order to search for a particular email in Outlook, you need to know exactly what information you're looking for. So, before beginning our tutorial, make sure you think carefully about what you're trying to accomplish.

For instance, say you want to locate a specific email relating to a project that was assigned to you earlier today. Instead of going through each folder one after the next, you could simply navigate directly to the folder containing the document and type in the keyword that relates to it. In this case, we're looking for a file titled Project Management Template. Since the filename contains the word template, you'd only need to type "template" into the search bar and hit Enter.

Another option involves creating a custom filter for your folders. By doing so, you can create rules that automatically sort your data based on certain criteria. Once created, filters can be applied across different folders and even subfolders, making them extremely useful in organizing your Outlook files.

To set up a new filter, click File " Options " Folders " Customize Folder View. Under Sort Criteria, click New Filter. Name the filter whatever makes sense to you. Select the field you wish to use for sorting and click OK twice to apply the rule. Now whenever you open a folder that matches the criteria specified above, it will automatically display according to those sorts.

Of course, there are plenty of other ways to search for an email in Outlook, too. Whether you prefer to manually browse through your various folders or rely on the built-in search tool, there's likely a method available for you to employ. Check out these helpful guides for getting started with Office 365 search capabilities.

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1. Searching for all of your messages

The first thing you need to know about searching for an email message in Microsoft Outlook is there are two types of searches – natural and custom.

Natural search: If you have ever used Gmail (or any other web-based service), then you will be familiar with how Google works. When you type something into its search field, Google finds every instance of that word throughout the entire internet and displays results based upon relevance. While this method has been around since the early 1990s, it still remains popular today because people like the idea of having access to information without needing to go to another site. This is why Yahoo! is so successful as well. It offers users easy access to everything they want, whether it be news articles, stock prices, sports scores, weather data, etc.

Custom search: Custom search allows you to create specific rules that allow you to perform more advanced queries than what would normally be possible using natural search. For example, if you were looking for an email from someone who had the last name Smith but no middle initial, you could use custom search to locate those messages by typing only their surname and pressing Enter.

If you aren’t sure which type of search you should be performing, we recommend starting out with natural search until you get comfortable with it before moving onto custom search.

Searching for messages via Natural Search

To start off with natural search, simply open up Outlook and click Tools > Options. Once inside the Options window, select Advanced tab and scroll down until you see the Location section. Here you will want to change the default location where Outlook stores new items (e.g., documents) to whatever folder you prefer. Click OK after changing these settings to close the Options window.

If you're looking to find one of your emails quickly and efficiently, there are several ways that you can use Outlook to search for it. You'll need to know what type of content is contained within each email before searching for it. For example, if you want to look at the entire text inside an email, then this will be very useful. If you just want to see where the email has been sent to, or which recipients have received it, then you may want to consider using filters instead.

Outlook comes with multiple built-in tools to help you locate your emails. The most common way to go about this is to open up the main menu and select Mail followed by Find & Select " Look In.... This brings up a window full of options that allow you to choose whether you'd like to search for a particular sender or subject line, as well as when you would like the results displayed (which could include the date they were created or last modified).

We've put together some tips below so you can get started!

What types of things can I search for in my inbox?

When searching for something in Outlook, you should try to limit yourself to only certain features first. The easiest place to start out is probably going to be the Subject field. All messages will contain a unique string of characters called the Subject Line, so this is a good starting point for most searches. It doesn't matter whether these subjects are short phrases or long sentences - anything that contains words or letters that match what you're after is likely to give you a result.

For instance, let's say you wanted to check if someone had replied to an email that you sent them recently. To do this, simply enter their name into the search bar and hit Enter. Alternatively, you could also just copy/paste their name directly into the search bar. As soon as you click Search, the results will appear underneath the search bar itself. These results will show any matching items in the Subject Field.

This method isn't limited to replies, either. Let's say you wanted to track down an old message that was sent via email but never got answered. There might be no easy answer here, but if you knew who you needed to contact, you could always add this information manually to the search bar. Then, once again, paste their names into the search bar and press Enter.

Another thing to bear in mind is that you don't necessarily need to search the whole conversation history. A more efficient approach would be to focus on messages that are relevant to the time period that you're interested in tracking down. After all, even though you might remember sending an important email, chances are you won't remember every single detail around the time that you did send it. So, rather than trying to trawl through everything that you ever wrote to anyone else, perhaps focusing on messages that came in close proximity to the timeframe that interests you is easier. Also, if you're still unsure about the exact contents of any given email, you can always save them somewhere safe before opening them.

All right, now we understand why we're doing this, let's move onto our next step!

It's worth noting that while Microsoft does offer a few extra advanced features, such as customizing your own keyboard shortcuts, this article covers the basics. We recommend reading How to Customize Keyboard Shortcuts in Outlook so you learn the best ways to set up your own personalized shortcuts.

How do I search for a specific person in Outlook?

One thing that many users often forget to do is to specify exactly who they're looking for. While searching for your boss' name in Outlook may seem obvious enough, this process needs to be done carefully if you're looking for a friend, family member, colleague, or another individual. Otherwise, you could end up seeing unrelated conversations between two other people entirely.

If you're looking for a specific person, you should make sure to create a separate folder specifically dedicated to holding that person's messages. When creating this new folder, ensure that both you and that person are added as 'contacts'. Once you've made sure that everyone knows where the messages are located, you can begin typing their initials into the search bar. Doing this allows you to narrow down the search results significantly without having to dig deep into various folders across Outlook.

Also note that whenever possible, avoid using spaces in the actual name. These spaces are used internally by Outlook and therefore cannot be removed. Instead, you should try to spell out the name completely, including any punctuation marks. However, if you absolutely must use spaces, you can remove them later by clicking File" Options " Advanced " Folders " Folder Settings " Text Editor. Here, you can replace double quotes with underscores.

Alternatively, if you aren't able to change the layout of your search results, you can always switch to a different view of your mailbox. Click View " Sort By " Recipients, then choose the option that suits you best. From here, you can sort by Name, Date Created, Last Modified, Sent First, Received First, Size, Label, Priority, Attachments, Sender, and Subject.

How do I find a specific email?

The simplest way to find an existing message is to follow the steps above and enter its details into the search bar. But what if you want to find a particular email regardless of what it looks like? Well, luckily, the solution is very simple too. Just head back over to the same menu option and choose Look In.... Now, select Messages from the dropdown arrow beside the word Message. Then, scroll through the resulting list until you find the desired item.

Where is the Search people box in Outlook?

In addition to being able to search for emails based off their content, you can also take advantage of Outlook's People feature to find emails relating to specific individuals. This works similarly to the Email Address section above. Simply open up the main menu, navigate to Mail, and then Choose Search " Look In.... Next, you'll need to pick a location to store your search results. Unfortunately, unlike the Email Address section, you can't really customize this part, so make sure to keep it somewhere sensible. Then, simply enter the name of whoever you're looking for into the search bar and hit Enter.

Once you've found the correct entry, you'll notice that the number of matches appears beneath the search bar. Scroll through these results until you come across the email you sought out.

And finally, if you're wondering how to search for all emails from a particular sender in Outlook, you can take advantage of the advanced search tool. Open up the main menu and navigate to Tools " Advanced Options " Advanced Search. In the dialog box that opens up, type the information describing the email(s) that you wish to retrieve into the appropriate fields. Then, press OK twice to execute the query.

Afterwards, you'll be presented with the results of your search. They will be listed alphabetically according to the first letter of the sender's name. Keep scrolling through these entries until you find the ones that you're looking for.

As mentioned previously, it's worth mentioning that this method requires you to search for the email addresses themselves. Because Outlook uses internal identifiers to identify each email individually, it means that you can't actually search for the content of the email itself. That said, this technique can prove extremely helpful if you're unable to recall the exact email address of a coworker or relative.