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How to Search better in Outlook 2010

When you send and receive lots of mails in outlook, it always becomes a trouble to find mail in the bunch of mails lying in the inbox. To search any mail, we usually use search option to search mail, but often it ends up showing irrelevant or too many result. For example, I want to search mail from Merwyn Noronha and while searching with the name Merwyn will return result including mails where the name also appears in part of the message body though you meant to search mails received from that person. However, Outlook is smart enough to narrow down the search result and show result which are relevant and correct. For better searching on outlook, you can specify the parameter with the search term. Suppose, I want to search all mails from Merwyn Noronha having attachments, or I want to search mails with specific category assigned. If you use Outlook often for work purpose in office, then this should be considered very important since in the end, you save a lot of time and can help you to grow productively. However, this parameter are very easy to use and would hardly take few minutes to understand these parameters.

Search better in Outlook 2010

In Outlook 2010, it has two search option available i.e the Search Contextual Tab in the Ribbon and the Search Suggestion List.

In Outlook, You can filter your search result using parameters. This parameter can be used to search mail accordingly to search mail by sender name, searching by keyword, searching mail having attachments, search by flagged messages and much more. There are many parameters available in outlook which could be used to filter out the search results. However, we would be showing few parameters, which are usually used for daily task.

 

Searching by Sender name:

Suppose, I want to filter the search results for mails received from Merwyn Noronha, I will add a parameter “FROM” in the search box and sender name.

from:(Sender Name)

how to search on outlook

Searching by Sender name having no attachment

Suppose, I want to filter the search results for mails received from Merwyn Noronha having no attachment, I will add a parameter “FROM” in the search box and sender name along with new parameter, i.e. “hasattachments:false” (If true is added, then it will display search result having the attachments for the mail)

from:(Sender Name) hasattachments:yes

search on outlook

Searching keyword in Subject line

To filter the search results for mails which is having certain text in subject.

subject:(keywords)

search mail using subject keyword

Searching attachment with specific Format

To filter the search results for mails having attachments with the specific file format, Suppose, I want to search result having attachment with .Docx Format (Word document) or .pptx Format(PowerPoint document) or PDF Format, etc.

hasattachments:(format name)

search mail on outlook using attachment format

Below are some more parameters for Outlook,

Search Result

Parameters

Sent mail to Recipient Nameto:(Recipient Name)
Sent mail to Recipient Name in CCcc:(Recipient Name)
Sent mail to Recipient Name in BCCbcc:(Recipient Name)
Mail tagged with followup flagfollowupflag:followup flag
Keyword contains in the message bodycontents:keyword
Mail sent on todaysent:today
Mail sent on yesterdaysent:yesterday
Mail sent on this weeksent:this week
Mail sent on last weeksent:last week
Mail sent on this monthsent:this month
Mail sent on this yearsent:this year
Mail received on todayreceived:today
Mail received on yesterdayreceived:yesterday
Mail received on this weekreceived:this week
Mail received on last weekreceived:last week
Mail received on this monthreceived:this month
Mail received on last monthreceived:last month
Mail received on this yearreceived:this year
Mails Having attachmenthasattachments:yes
Mails Having no attachmenthasattachments:no
Mails attachment with different file formatattachment:.docx (replace .docx with file format to search)
Mails attachment having content with following keywordattachment:facebook
Mails which are unreadread:no
Mails which are readread:yes
Mail importance levelimportance:high
Search by Categoriescategory:=”Blue Category” (replace “blue” name with other categories name i.e yellow, orange, red,etc.)
Mails sent to me in TO sectionto:Your name
Mails sent to me in CC sectioncc:Your Name

However, You can also access this search parameter through the Search Tools Ribbon, In Refine section of Search tools, you can find all the search parameter to filter the search result.

Search mail using outlook parameter

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About Roshan Karkera

Roshan Karkera a.k.a. k.roshan. Blogger by passion and software engineer by profession. He believes in sharing knowledge, which made him to start his own blog. He is very much keen & passionate about new technology & Science. If you'd like to connect with him, follow at Google plus or Twitter.

3 comments

  1. You don’t need to put in the Parameter manually, just click the + MORE sign at the Search tab (the green plus sign) then add the search criteria in.

  2. Attached is the screenshot… once you see it, you will know how simple it can be!

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