Searching in Thunderbird...

[Bigaldoc]

... drives me crazy and I've just put up with it all these years !!! I don't think it's my ignorance but that's been proven incorrect many times.

I have a file of emails that my son and I have exchanged for many years. Today, I want to search those emails, trying to find out when they adopted the first puppy, a dog named Mack.

So, I go to search, select BODY of the message and type in MACK as the search term. Sounds simple enough except that I get a list of messages, NONE of which has the word "MACK" in the body!!!

Either Thunderbird search has been flawed for years or there's something (probably simple) that I'm missing. I try desperately NOT to use search in TB because of this, but ...

Can anyone comment, please?

[jonwallace]

Al,

If you are using the quickfilter box (my method of choice), then it will only search the folder you're in on the first pass, then you should get a popup saying "Press enter to continue search across all folders" if it couldn't find anything. This then runs the (to my mind) less friendly search you get from the top search box. If you're talking about Edit-Find-Search Messages, then I'm sorry I can't help.

[Bigaldoc]

Thanks for writing, John. I essentially am using the edit/find because I right-click on a folder in the left pane and select search from there.

I've got to admit I've never tried the quick one in the upper right corner. I'll have to give that one a try to see what I get.

As I mentioned in my post, my concern is that I get too many hits, most of which do not contain my search word.

[BobH]

Howdy Big Al!

Have you tried invoking search in TB from the menu (Edit/Find/Search_Messages)? I get this panel then check to be certain "Search Subfolders" is checked then select the "Match all of the following ... " radio button. I then click on the drop down in the left-most panel and choose "Body", leave "contains" as it is, then enter my search item in the lost bubble (here you would put "Mack"). Click the "Search" button at the upper right and Bob's yer uncle.

I've found this to be quite discreet in terms of results - but that depends on your search argument, of course. I've also used it to select messages from individuals and to search subjects.

HTH

[Bigaldoc]

That's EXACTLY what I do, step for step. As I said, the problem is that I get "hits" that absolutely don't have the word I'm searching for. Can' understand what I'm doing wrong. Especially if some (all?) of you don't have any problems with searching.

[BobH]

All I have left to suggest is that you take screenshots of each step and post them here. Someone might spot something.

[stuck]

I don't think screenshots will help. It's a long time since I've used TB, we were moved on to Outlook but I have memories of searching TB messages and getting hits that superficially did NOT contain the search term I'd entered.

I always put it down to the fact the search was either trawling through the headers (despite being told to search only 'body') or more likely that the search was treating the key word as a fragment. So for example if this post were a TB message a search for 'men' would find this post because of the word fragMENt. Or even that a search for 'dent' would find the words 'I'D ENTered'.

it's a theory!

Ken

[Bigaldoc]

And a good theory it is, Ken. I did look for "consecutive" letters in the hits that would have satisfied my search term, but there were many messages with none.

I never did think about the possibility of the headers, in which case the search function would be malfunctioning. Next time I'll turn header viewing on and check that possibility. Thanks.