While it might seem quick to type a keyword in the search box, this can return a lot of search results! You then have to spend time scrolling through the results trying to find the email you want. Using advanced search features for a more effective search

All items: Searches all Outlook mail accounts, calendars, contacts and tasks.All Mail: Searches in the Inbox, Sent, Drafts and the folders and sub-folders of all email accounts you have open in Outlook.Current Mailbox – Searches in the Inbox, Drafts and the folders and sub-folders of whichever email account you are in when you perform the search.Subfolders: Searches in the folder you are currently in and all its sub-folders.This is the default option when you perform a search. Current folder: Searches only in the folder you are currently in.Use the icons in the Search toolbar to choose a location to search. This is a setting that you will need to change each time you search.

Most of the time you will probably want to search your entire mailbox, not just one location.

The file names of attachments (but not the contents within the attachments).

wherever you currently are, like your Inbox ) and will look for the keyword in: Clicking in the search box will also open the search toolbar in the ribbon.īy default, this will search the current folder or view only (i.e. You can perform a basic search in Outlook by simply typing a keyword in the Search box. Search basicsīefore we delve into effective search practices in Outlook for Mac, let’s start by covering some fundamental concepts. If you are a Windows user, check out this blog post on searching in Outlook Windows version. Some things may look a little different if you are using another version of Outlook for Mac, but the general process will remain the same. Note: The steps and images shown in this post are for Outlook for Mac (Office 365 version 16.25, July 2019). In this blog post, I’ll explain how the search feature works in Outlook for Mac (it’s quite different to how it works in the WIndows version) and how you can use it to quickly find the email you are looking for. If you use Microsoft Outlook for Mac and want to become efficient at quickly finding emails, then learning how to search effectively is really important! It’s so easy to waste time digging through folders and scrolling through search results trying to find that email that you just know is hidden somewhere.

Outlook for mac 2019