Searching tips for email

You can type a number of words or phrases in the Search box at the top of the Outlook message list to try to find old emails; however, in addition to searching for different words and phrases, you can use various operators, punctuation and keywords to better narrow your search results.

The most basic way to search is to simply type in a word or phrase. Outlook uses what's called prefix matching when searching. So if you type “ray” into the Search box, Outlook will return messages that contain ray, Ray, Raymond, and rays, but not disarray or tray.

Search basics

When you type words into the Search box, Outlook scans both email messages and many types of attachments for that word or phrase. For example, if you search for "project" either with or without quotes, Outlook will return all messages with the word project, projects, projector, projecting, etc. anywhere in the sender name, subject, message body, or attachments.

When you type in an email address, for example chery.parsons64@yahoo.com, Outlook returns all email messages that contain that email address anywhere in the subject, message body, or many types of attachments as well as messages from that email address. To limit your search results to emails from just that email address use the FROM: option.  For example, FROM:cheryl.parsons64@yahoo.com

Use Outlook's built-in search filters

Outlook provides you with a number of built-in search filters. To use the built-in filters, click in the Search box. The Outlook ribbon will change to show the Search tab. Use any of the options in the Refine group to refine your search results.

Use the +More option to see all the available filters and to build a little on-the-fly search form like this below. You fill in the fields and it shows you the actual query in the search field.

You can also use AND, NOT, OR, <, >, =, and other operators to refine your search. Operators should be typed in uppercase letters.

For example:

aws NOT subject:(Spam Quarantine)
This will search emails that contain the acronym “aws” but excludes any email with “Spam Quarantine” in the subject line so to disregard our Spam Quarantine Summary emails.  

subject:(qws OR powerpoint)
This will search for any email with "qws" or "powerpoint" in the subject line only.

This information is based off of the following Microsoft Office support document.  Follow the link for the full article.  
Learn to narrow your search criteria for better searches in Outlook