Search Email
Video Helplet
Watch how to sort and search through email.Searching in Stanford Email and Calendar allows you to find messages, contacts, and appointments. You can search by specific words, by dates, time, URL, size, tag, whether or not a message has been read, whether it has file attachments or attachments of a particular file type, and more.
Stanford Email and Calendar offers two search tools:
- Quick-search. The drop-down arrow at the right of the search box allows you to select which type of items to search for. You can select to search within messages, your contacts, including StanfordWho directory (labeled Company Contacts), contact lists, tasks, and appointments.
- Advanced. Advanced search opens a new pane and makes it easier to execute more complex searches. You can save your advanced search queries and re-execute them at a later date.
Things to keep in mind when searching:
- You can search for phrases, but each word within that phrase is matched literally by whole-word only. Spelling variants are not allowed. For example, if you search for bananas, messages with banana are not a match. You can search by domain name including the "." (period) For example, you can search for "stanford.edu" or "yahoo.com".
- Search is not case sensitive; "South", "south", and "SOUTH" is all the same thing.
- These special characters cannot be used in your search text. o ~ ' ! @ # $ % ^ & () _- + ? / { }[ ] ; : "
- The asterisk * as a wildcard after a prefix is supported. For example, search for do* returns items with the word dog, door, etc.
- Searching for content will search the body of a message plus any (system-readable) file attachments it may have. A system-readable file attachment is a type of file that can be converted to HTML-viewable text. These include Microsoft Office documents (Word, PowerPoint, or Excel), as well as pdf and text files, but not image or audio files.
Quick-search
Quick-search Email Messages
- Next to the search field click the search menu arrow, and choose Email.
- Enter a word, name, or other mail-related data item in the Search text box. You can also enter criteria such as has:attachment.
- Click Search to execute the search.
Quick-search Stanford Contacts
- Click the search menu arrow and choose Company Contacts.
- Enter a name in the search field. You can enter first and last name, first initial and last name, last name only, or even first name only.
- Click Search to execute the search.
If your search result is greater than 25 entries, the first 25 items will appear. Click the right arrow at the top right of the Address Book window to see the next 25 items and repeat until you can no longer click the right arrow.
Quick-search Contacts in Your Personal Address Book
- Click the search menu arrow and choose Contacts.
- Enter a name or other contact data item in the Search text box.
- Click Search to execute the search.
How to Clear Your Search
There is no official method to "clear your search." However, you can click Get Mail or click on the Inbox to get back to your current mail.
Advanced Searching
The Advanced search feature opens separate mini-panes to perform different types of searches. You can open multiple instances of each mini-pane.
You might want to do this if you are doing AND type searches. Advanced search allows you to search by the following criteria:
- Attachment. No Attachment, Any Attachment, or Specific Attachment. If you select specific attachment, a list of attachment types is displayed.
- Basic. Uses header information such as From, To, Subject, and Content of the email body.
- Date. Search for messages received after, on, or before a selected date. Open two Date panes to search between dates.
- Domain. Search for messages where the address headers (From/To/Cc) contain addresses from certain domains. The domains are pre-defined with check boxes.
- Folder. Limit search to selected folders only.
- Saved Search. Open a search query you have saved previously.
- Size. Search for messages that are larger or smaller than a specified size (bytes, KB, or MB).
- Zimlets. Search for messages or contacts containing URLs, phone numbers, or other objects as defined by your Zimbra administrator.
- Status. Search for messages or contacts that are flagged or unflagged. Search for messages that are read, unread, forwarded, or replied to.
- Tag. Search for messages or contacts that have a specific tag or a specified set of tags.
- Time. Search for messages that arrived within a time-frame, such as the last hour, this week, last month, etc.
Search for Messages Using Detailed Criteria
- Click Advanced to open the Advanced search area.
- Click icons in the toolbar to open the pane for the type of criteria you want to use for your search. (Select from the above list)
- Enter information. If you enabled the Preferences to Always Show Search String, the Search text box updates as you type or make selections.
- As soon as you enter a criteria in a search pane, or as soon as you have made any selection change in any other search pane, such as changing a radio button or a drop-down search option, the search executes.
- Items matching the search criteria are listed in the lower right. If the Conversation feature is enabled, conversations containing messages that match the search criteria are listed.
- To refresh the search results area, click Search.
For example, suppose you are searching for messages that contain either Adobe PDF files or JPEG images. You would select both these check boxes within the same Attachments pane.
Saving search queries
If you create a search that you think you will want to use again, you can save it.
- Create the search query, either by entering text in the Search bar or by creating a query with Advanced search.
- To save the search click on the Search bar. The Save Search dialog box opens.
- Type the name for your saved search. Searches are saved as a search folder in the Searches section of the Overview pane by default, but you can select another folder.
- Click OK. Your search is saved.
To use a saved search, click the search folder. The search results immediately display in the Content pane.
For detailed query language descriptions, click Help on the upper right corner of your Stanford Webmail window.
