There are many things I hate when it comes to email. Even more so when it comes to Outlook. Searching, and in particular, finding what I’m looking for is one these.
Windows Search is a powerful search engine built-in Windows 7. It was known as Desktop Search 4.0 in Windows XP. It uses an indexing engine that runs in the background and lets you use an Search window to perform queries.
This little how to will show you how to use Windows Search to quickly and efficiently search your Outlook PST or OST files (emails, calendar items, tasks, contacts).
Step 1: Enable Windows Search and the Indexing Engine
Open your Control Panel. And click the “Programs” section title. Next, select “Turn Windows features on or off”.
 Control Panel – Programs |
 Control Panel – Windows Features |
Make sure that the following two items are CHECKED:
- Indexing Servince
- Windows Search
 Features: Indexing |
 Features: Windows Search |
Click OK and let Windows install new components as needed.
Step 2: Configure Indexing
Open your Control Panel, and type “indexing” in the “Search Control Panel” textbox in the upper-right part of the Control Panel. Select “Indexing Options” or “Change how Windows searches”.
 Control Panel: Indexing Options |
The Indexing Options dialog shows up. Click “Modify”. The Indexed Locations dialog pops up. Expand the “Microsoft Office Outlook” item and ensure the mailboxes you wish to search on are CHECKED. Click OK to the Indexed Locations dialog, and Close in the Indexing Options dialog.
 Indexing Options |
 Indexing Locations |
If you just enabled Indexing, it will take a while for Windows to actually index all your content. To view the status of indexing, you can go back to the Indexing Options dialog and monitor the indexing status in the upper part of the window.
Step 3: Easy Outlook Windows Search
Open your Personal Folders (Start Menu -> Your Name, or C:UsersYourName). Double-click the “Searches” folder.
 Personal Folders |
 Searches: Microsoft Office Outlook |
Create a shortcut for the “Microsoft Office Outlook” in the Searches folder and put it in your Start Menu (or anywhere else you’d like). Right-click the shortcut and select “Properties”. Click in the “Shortcut key” text box. Next, hold CTRL, ALT, SHIFT and S. The shortcut will be entered. Click OK on the shortcut Properties window.
Note: I highly recommend using a CTRL+ALT+SHIFT combo. Applications get priority over shortcuts, and Ctrl+Alt+S has various meanings within Outlook (in a message view for example, it means Split Screen), Alt+Shift+S is used for Send. And so on. For this reason, I’ve taken a habit of setting my personal global shortcuts keys as Ctrl+Shift+Alt as it has a much smaller chance of conflicting with applications. Anyways, when you have your fingers on any two of these Ctrl/Alt/Shift keys, you might as well hold the 3 at the same time. 
 Shortcut Keys |
The Result
Wherever you are (within Outlook or anywhere else), hit CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+S and the Outlook Search window will popup. The first thing you will want to do is to change the view mode of the search window to “Content”: this will show a short summary of the email. To do so, perform a search (anything, for example “from:damien”) and click the “Change your view” icon just below the search box. Select “Content” view.
You can then use any usual search filters. Here are the most popular:
- to: will filter results based on the recipient of the email. For example, To:Damien will show only emails that were sent to Damien.
- from: will filter results based on the sender of the email.
- subject: will search the subject of the email
- content: will search the body of the email
- kind: will search specific sets of document. In this case, we’re searching Outlook so we won’t be using this item most of the time. On the other end, if a search returns too many results because of calendar items, tasks or contacts, you may want to refine it with “kind:email”
A complete example would be: “from:Mike to:Damien content:EmailSecurityMatters”
 Easy and Fast Outlook Search |
For every search results, you can also right-click the item and select “Show Conversation” to view the entire thread.
 View Email Content |
 Show Conversation |
Microsoft has a complete list of filters (to:, from:, subject:, content:, kind:, size:, hasattachment:, etc.) which can be used in Windows:
Windows Search Advanced Query Syntax
Have you improved your Microsoft Outlook Search even more? Do you have any other useful Search Filters you would like to share? Did you like this article? Let us know!
why is this standard in Mac OS and I need to do complex stuff in Windows ?
why do you talk about 2007 while we are in 2011 ?
The Instant Search of Outlook 2007/2010 is using the same engine as Windows Search, but without all of these complex configurations. And you don’t even have to leave Outlook to use it!
@Richard Laniel: I’ve read the same thing as what you’re describing many times. But I’m not sure about its accuracy. My experience is very different, using Outlook’s Instant Search yields far less results (sometimes it doesn’t even find anything) and takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r.
Using the Windows Search yields accurate results, FAST!
For me, it’s night and day both in terms of accuracy and speed (if you’ve been on the net for a while, I’d say it’s similar to Altavista vs. Google back in the nineties).
For search issues in Outlook I, for myself, would use an outlook search tool. WDS is a good desktop search, but for Outlook…I don’t know!
If you primarly want to search in outlook for mails, adresses and more, Lookeen is a good solution! Maybe some of you have heard of it before…if you ask me the best alternative to handle Outlook!But that is just my opinion!
@Jonny Knokebecker
Thanks for your comment.
I would answer the first part of your comment by: Apple has a much more targeted customer profile and more focused product management team than Microsoft, who has a much wider audience in terms of end-users, and thus a wider spectrum of product features and profiles.
For the second part, the answer is simple: Outlook 2007 is the most used email client on the planet and will stay so for a couple years, as Outlook 2010 will gradually replace it.
@Larry
Sounds like a tool I definitely need to check out! Thanks for the tip!
Hi,
you don’t need to enable “Indexing Service” in the Windows Features. That’s a legacy indexing service. The newest indexing is in-buit into the Windows Serach on Windows 7.
Didn’t know it was a legacy service. Thanks for the tip, Dominik !
Hi there,
We are an IT support company based around London and we have many customers who constantly complain about the slowness of mail search, so thanks for this tip
DP
IT Support
http://www.theitsolution.co.uk
@DP: Glad we could help! Feel free to browse the rest of the site, it contains tons of tips and howto’s related to email productivity, anti-spam and email security.
Maybe it just me, but I can’t stand all these index search tools. For Outlook I just do a CTRL + SHIFT + F to give me back my advanced search box. Why take it away from me? Also for Windows 7 I use FileSearchEX to give me that XP style look. Simple, fast. Why make everything so complicated?