Searching

[Martin]

I haven't been very succesful at using Outlook's "Advanced Find" tool. It
simply doesn't seem to work very well. Here's an example:

Let's say you get a lot of emails from various customers at a hypothetical
domain called "thedomain.com" and you want to find these emails.

Use Advance Find
Go to "Advance" tab
Select the "From" field
Select the "contains" condition
Type "@thedomain.com" (no quotes) in the "Value" field
Add to list
Browse for desired folder and choose to search subfolders if appropriate
Click "Find Now".

When I do this, the results are random at best. And, with absolute
certainty, I know that it does not find all messages. In fact, I've tested
this with messages that just arrived (meaning that I can see the message and
it is not buried 300 messages away) and "Advanced Find" cannot find them.

What am I doing wrong?

I just want to be able to search based on a substring in the email address.
Not all of these people are necesarily in my address book, so I can't pull a
contact off the address book. And, as the above example proposed, sometimes
you are not looking for individuals but for anyone from that domain or maybe
you vaguely remember that the email starts with "lucy" and just want to go
hunting for it.

Thanks,


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
(e-mail address removed)
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Outlook version?

 

[Martin]

Outlook version?

Sorry. 2003, SP1.

Although, I know I've seen this problem in prior versions. I don't remember
to what extent.

-Martin

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

And the problem is? The newsgroup interface you are using apparently does not quote earlier messages in the thread, making your latest message so short on detail that you risk not getting the answer you're looking for. Please take the time to quote the original message.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Brian Tillman]

The newsgroup interface you are using apparently
does not quote earlier messages in the thread

And the one you are using doesn't seem to do a good job of keeping track of
threads, but that shouldn't be the case, since you're using Outlook Express.
So am I and I can easily see Martin's original post. I wonder why you
can't.

 

[Martin]

And the problem is? The newsgroup interface you are using apparently does

not quote earlier messages in the thread

No, that's not the case. Using OE.

I deleted the rest of the message. No sense in carrying repetitive
information. OE keeps the whole thread, therefore it isn't all that
difficult to get the full story. Also, if everything else fails, there's
always Google.

Secondarily, in the US we have pretty benign Internet access possibilities,
however, in other parts of the world it is quite costly to get online. Less
bytes in a message means that people can get in and out quickly. Just
trying to be considerate.

Lastly, in this day an age of portable Internet access devices it is wise to
be aware of the fact that not everyone appreciates messages with 30K of
redundant information. For example, I use a Blackberry on a daily basis,
where bottom-posting is nothing short of a nightmare. It makes reading
through ones emails virtually impossible. I know that the bottom/top
posting issue is almost a religious one. I am not saying the above to start
yet another useless debate on the subject. Just explaining my methodology.

-Martin

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Simple: I mark messages as read when I read them and don't keep them around. Since most threads never receive further replies, that keeps the clutter under control.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

No one was asking for 30k of redundant information, just the 5k that stated the problem clearly.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Martin]

Simple: I mark messages as read when I read them and don't keep them

around.

Forgive me for being obtuse here. I mark my messages as read by means of
the timed setting in OE. However, any messages in a thread whose content
was previously downloaded stay available for a long time (weeks?) before
they get flushed out. Your ISP or newsfeed provider ultimately determines
for how long the messages stay on their server. Then, there's always
Google. Just a couple of clicks away.

What are you doing that causes a message that is marked as read to be
emptied of all content irreparably? And, why would you do that to a message
that you just responded to? Do you simply delete them and/or the thread?

I've never run into this, ever. And, I've been in USENET for probably over
20 years, reading, following and participating in several dozen newsgroups
(mostly enginering related) over this time.

In twenty years it's the first time someone asks me to re-post, particularly
to something that they just responded to hours earlier.

Yes, USENET is at least 20 years old. I was using it with plain text
terminals back in the early '80's.

-Martin

 

[Martin]

Let's try this again.

Outlook 2003, latest SP's and updates
PST size: About 900MB
Archive PSD size: About 200MB
Win XP Pro, up to date with SP's and other updates.


Simply stated: Advanced Find fails to reliably locate messages, even with
the simplest search conditions. A typical one for me is to look for any
emails from a certain domain. For example, any messages where the "To"
field contains "@microsoft.com".

I've seen posts on similar issues going back to v2000 and no apparent
resolution. Is this just a bug that hasn't been fixed?

Thanks,

-Martin

 

[Brian Tillman]

Simply stated: Advanced Find fails to reliably locate messages, even
with the simplest search conditions. A typical one for me is to look
for any emails from a certain domain. For example, any messages
where the "To" field contains "@microsoft.com".

Does it work if you leave off the "@"?

 

[Martin]

Does it work if you leave off the "@"?

It doesn't make any difference. I could search for "soft" or "micro" or
"soft.com" with similar results.

In general terms, it's an issue having to do with searching for a substring
within a string (in this case the email address).

This isn't generally a total failure scenario, but rather a
quality-of-results issue. If there are 100 messages that should match the
target string, the search might only uncover five. I also suspect that it
is not always spanning subfolders, even if that option is checked.

One question is about the meaning of the "To" field. If Outlook takes "To"
to have something to do with an entry in the address book rather than simply
a text string that happens to contain an email address...that might explain
it.

-Martin

 

[Martin]

Update.

MS support tells me that the "From" field in Advance Find will not search
the email address field but rather the display name: In other words, if
John Smith's email address is (e-mail address removed) searching for "john100001"
will yield no results. However, searching for "Smith" would.

The resoultion is a little strange. When Advance Find starts up, simply
type the desired seach substring in the textbox next to the "From..."
button. You have to make sure that the "In:" field just above that reads
"subject field and message body". Amazingly enough, this will search for a
substing within the sender's actual email address.

I'll just accept the fact that this works. How we get from "subject field
and message body" to searching the email address is beyond me. Oh, well.

Hope this is of use to someone who might be having similar problems.

-Martin