Searching For Contacts And Other Microsoft Outlook Data


Outlook will ask for you to install the Instant Search the first time you use it. When you request the installation, Outlook downloads some information from the Internet and installs the needed Instant Search tools. The Instant Search box appears in Outlook whether or not it’s been installed to run. If you haven’t upgraded to Windows Vista yet or haven’t installed Instant Search, you can still search from the Instant Search box, but the results will appear more slowly, especially if you maintain a lot of Outlook data and emails.

Locate Your Email
Click to display your Inbox folder, Sent Items folder, or any other email folder you’ve created and stored email messages in.

Search for Text
The Instant Search box rests at the top of your Inbox window. Click there and begin typing the word or phrase you want to locate within your Inbox folder. Outlook begins searching for matches the moment you type the first letter. As you keep typing, Outlook refines the search and displays emails that contain your search term below the Instant Search box. Outlook highlights the background yellow everywhere in the email subject line or body that your search term is found.

Refine the Search
Click the arrow to the right of your Instant Search box’s text box to open additional Instant Search options. (Clicking once more restores your Instant Search box.) You’ll be able to refine your search. For example, instead of looking for one search term in all email messages, you can search for a specific term located in an email’s Subject line and perhaps look for a name in the From text box. Click the down arrows next to the From, Body, Subject, and To boxes to specify additional email-related elements you can search within, such as searching within the Bcc field or searching for a specific size of email or date an email was sent to you. You can add more search criteria by clicking Add Criteria to narrow your search results even further.


Change the Search Options
Click the down arrow to the right of your Instant Search box phrase and select Search Options to change the Instant Search box’s behavior. The Search Options dialog box appears, where you can limit the folders searched, change the highlighting color of located text, and modify other behavior related to your Instant Search box.

Create a Search Folder
A Search Folder is an email folder that contains shortcuts to emails. These are shortcuts because Outlook doesn’t actually move or copy messages to a Search Folder. A Search Folder is virtual in that it only appears as though it holds email. That email matches the criteria you’ve requested for that Search Folder. Seeing a Search Folder in action helps one understand its purpose and content. To create a Search Folder, select File, New, Search Folder. Outlook displays the New Search Folder dialog box.

Listed in the dialog box are several criteria you can designate for a new Search Folder you want to create. Scroll down to see more options. Suppose you want to create a Search Folder that holds only email that contains specific words, such as “Sale” or “Discount.” Scroll to the Mail with Specific Words option, click the Choose button, and add Sale and Discount to the list. When you click OK, the New Search Folder dialog box displays Sale or Discount in its Show Messages text box to indicate the kind of mail that will be stored in this Search Folder. When you click OK to close the New Search Folder dialog box, Outlook adds a new folder to your Navigation pane inside the Search Folders folder. Outlook also begins searching through your emails for any that meets the criteria of the search.

If Outlook locates any email that qualifies for the Search Folder, it stores a shortcut to that email in your Search Folder. For all practical purposes, the email appears to reside in the folder, so the fact that it’s only a shortcut isn’t vital except that it means the original email is still safely tucked away in its original location. If you change the criteria of a Search Folder and a message no longer qualifies for that Search Folder, Outlook removes the message from the Search Folder, but it still resides in its original location in another email folder. Also, Outlook constantly monitors your Search Folder criteria, and every time you receive, send, or create new email messages, if any new messages match your Search Folder’s criteria, Outlook stores the message there.

Use Instant Search for Contacts
Locating a contact in your Contacts folder is relatively simple when you begin to populate your Contacts folder. Often you’ll scroll to the contact you want to see and then double-click the contact to see the details if you need more than the current Contacts folder view allows. As with all Outlook folders, your Contacts folder sports an Instant Search box. Type the first few letters of whatever contact you want to find—and you don’t have to limit your search to last names; type any text or numbers from any contact field—and Outlook immediately begins locating contacts that match your search.