Serious Searching with Advanced Find

This page shows you how to use Outlook's Advanced Find dialog box. The Find tool works well for basic searches, ones where you want to find a particular word or phrase in one or more folders. Find isn't useful when you need to do more complicated searches. At times you may need to find items like these:

• Messages where certain words or phrases appear only in the Subject field or some other specific part of the message



• Items that fit a certain category, whether they are messages, tasks, calendar entries, whatever



• Items that are larger than a certain size



• Items that have attachments



• Items that have a flag of a particular color associated with them



• Messages that were sent directly to you rather than CC'd to you

It would take forever to cover all the possible searches you can do with Advanced Find. The following section shows you how to create an Advanced Find search in general. Once you have the basic technique down, you may want to experiment a bit to get a better feel for all the possibilities.

Searching with Advanced Find

Look for list. This list allows you to specify which type of items (Messages, Tasks, Files, or any Outlook item) you want to search for. When you open the Advanced Find dialog box, this list automatically displays the type of item that's most relevant to your current location in Outlook. Open the Advanced Find dialog box while you are looking at Contacts, and the Look for list displays Contacts.

In: box. This box shows which Outlook folders will be searched. Clicking the Browse button next to the In: box opens a Select Folders dialog box where you can specify exactly which folders you want to search.

Tabbed pages. The Advanced Find dialog box has three tabbed pages.

1. The first tabbed page contains the most-commonly used search options. The options available (even the name of this page) change depending on what you select in the Look for list. Most of the time, you will be able to do what you need to do using just this page.



2. The second page is the More Choices page. It contains less-frequently used options that you can use to make your searches much more specific. I've seldom found a need to use this page.



3. The last page is the Advanced page. On this page you can define your own search criteria. It is a very powerful page, but all that power makes it difficult to use. I've only used it a couple of times in my life, and I suggest you avoid it if possible.

New Search button. Clears all the search settings so you can begin a new one without having to manually clear the old one.

After you enter your search settings and click Find Now, the search results appear in a list that opens at the bottom of the Advanced Find dialog box. Double-click an entry in the list to open the relevant Outlook item.

Saving and Using Searches

NOTE: Not sure when it is better to save a search rather than create a search folder? The answer depends, in part, on your strategy for managing and archiving Outlook items. Pages 297 through 299 of How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 provide suggestions on coming up with such a strategy, and the How to box on page 298 specifically addresses choosing between saved searches and search folders.

To save a search, follow these simple steps:

1. In the Advanced Find dialog box, click File, then Save Search. This opens the Save Search dialog box.



2. Give the saved search a name. This name should be memorable enough to allow you to easily identify the search in the future.



3. Specify the folder in which it should be stored. If you followed the advice elsewhere on this site about creating a My Outlook folder this folder would be a great place to store your saved searches.

1. In the Advanced Find dialog box, click File then Open Search. This opens the Open Saved Search dialog box.



2. Navigate to the folder containing the saved search.



3. Double-click the name of the search you want to use. This closes the Open Saved Search dialog box and returns you to the Advanced Find dialog box. All the settings from the saved search are automatically restored.



4. Click Find Now to run the saved search.

• Return to the top of this Advanced Find page.



• Return to the Search Outlook page.