Objective
Searching for specific email by sender, topic, date, etc. Basic techniques and advanced search terms are provided in this article.
Audience
Environment
Outlook on the web
Procedure
Basic search
- Sign in to the Outlook Web App.
- In the Search box, type your search criteria (a phrase, name, or eID) and press Enter (or click the search button).
- To search by specific folders, click in Search and click All.
- To tailor your search, click Filter and select from these categories:
- All -- (default) search all email stored in the Inbox
- Unread -- search only email you haven't read
- To me -- search email that lists you in the To line
- Flagged -- search email on which you have clicked the Flag icon
- Has files -- search email that has attachments
- Mentions me -- search email that mentions me
- As you type, the web app displays options based on previous searches. To tailor the search, select a suggestion and press Enter.
- The resulting list of emails is ordered by Date by default.
- At any time, you can click Filter and select Sort from the menu to display email results in a different order such as Date, From, Size, Important, Subject, etc.
Advanced search
Use these search formats to obtain more precise results.
- attachment:filename - search for an attachment by name (example: attachment:welcome.pdf)
- body:term - search for a word or phrase in the email contents (aka content:term)
- cc:person - search for someone listed in the CC line
- from:person - search for who sent the email (by eID or by name)
- has:flag - find email that you have flagged (clicked the Flag icon)
- has:attachment - find any email that has one or more attachments
- participants:name - search for someone across the To, CC, and BCC fields
- received:date - search for the date you received the email; uses same date format as Sent
- sent:date - search for the date the email was sent, by you or others
- sent:today - find email sent today
- sent:last week - find email sent the previous week
- sent:this week - find email sent during the current week
- sent:may - find email sent in May
- sent:may2013 - find email sent in May 2013
- sent:10may2013 - find email sent May 10, 2013
- subject:term - search for a word or phrase in the Subject line
- to:person - search for whom the email was sent to (by eID or by name)