Did you know you can use multiple search terms and tokens when looking for an email message in Mail? “What’s a search token?” you ask.

Let’s explore how search works in Apple apps to help you find the items you seek. In this case, we’ll focus on email messages.

How to Search Mail

On our technological devices, “search” refers to entering one or more keywords or tokens in a field to help find specific items in a database. This differs from “browse,” wherein you generally scroll through a list of items in hopes that what you seek catches your eye.

To search in Mail on iPhone/iPad, swipe down on the message list in any mailbox view to reveal the search field, shown in the green box above. On Mac, find the Search field on the right side of the window toolbar or, if your window is too small, first click the magnifying glass on the toolbar. Then, you can start entering keywords.

Keywords + Tokens

Keywords that you enter in the search field can be anywhere in an email message, including sender, subject, and body. Put a phrase in quotes to find exact matches.

As you type, you’ll find that Mail intelligently offers a number of possible search queries below the field, such as the name of a person (sender or recipient), the contents of a message subject, or the name of an attachment. These are search tokens and you can choose one to add it to your search query.

Yes, I said “add.” After you add one token, you can tap next to the existing items in the search field and add more to get more specific. For example, to find only messages with attachments, try typing “attach” and choosing the Message has Attachments token from the bottom of the list.

Search Scope

On iPhone/iPad, before choosing a search token, you can choose the scope of your search. These devices limit you to choose All Mailboxes or the Current Mailbox, so you may want to first navigate to a desired mailbox before searching there.

In particular, All Mailboxes excludes Trash and Spam, even after navigating there, so make sure to choose Current Mailbox to search inside one of these special mailboxes. And, make sure you remember what mailbox you’re in before you start searching it, because iOS doesn’t display the mailbox name during a search operation.

On Mac, search scope is more flexible. At any time while composing a search, you can change scope to one or more mailboxes. Just select a mailbox in the sidebar or on the Favorites bar to search there. Use the Shift and/or Command keys to multi-select mailboxes in the sidebar in which to collectively search.

Still having trouble finding your messages. If no results come up on your Mac, your mail index may need to be rebuilt. (Follow the steps to reset Spotlight.) Or, contact me for more guidance on strengthening your search queries.