Find what you need quickly in Outlook

Instant Search makes it snappy

Who hasn't wasted time searching through their Inbox or Deleted Items folders for an elusive e-mail message or attachment? With the new Instant Search feature in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, you can find what you are looking for quickly.

The Instant Search pane is always available in Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Notes, Folder List, and Journal (Figure 1)

Figure 1

Note: When you start Outlook 2007, if you don't already have the Windows Desktop Search component installed on your computer, a dialog box will display prompting you to download the software. If you are using Outlook 2007 on a computer that runs Windows Vista, Instant Search is enabled automatically and there are no prompts.

1. In Mail, select the folder that you want to search in.

2. In the Search box, type your search text. Messages that contain the text that you typed are automatically displayed in the Search Results pane with the search text highlighted . To narrow your search, type more characters.

Figure 2

3. To widen your search to include all folders in Mail, click Try searching again in All Mail Items at the end of the search results.

Top of page

More instant search tips

To make your search more focused, click the Expand the Query Builder arrow (Figure 3) in the Instant Search pane and type in additional search terms in the fields shown. To display more search fields in the Query Builder, click Add Criteria and then select the search fields you want from the list.

Figure 3

Outlook will display up to 10 of your most recent searches. In the Search pane, click the arrow, point to Recent Searches, and then select the search that you want from the list .

Figure 4

With the ability to use Instant Search to quickly locate an e-mail message, calendar item or contact, Outlook 2007 helps you work more efficiently than you could with previous versions.

Top of page