Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Find Your Messages
OS X's Spotlight search feature automatically indexes all your Mail messages for super-fast
searching, and you can search for them either within Mail or using the system-wide Spotlight
menu.
But Mail isn't limited to simple text searches. With a flexible system of search tokens (which I
explain in a moment), Boolean searches, and other options, you can find almost any message
you can describe.
And, you can even save a search by converting it into a smart mailbox, as I describe at the end
of this chapter in
Work Smarter with Smart Mailboxes
.
Perform a Basic Search
To find an email message, begin by (optionally) selecting one or more mailboxes in the sidebar
in which you want to search. Then start typing in the Search field in Mail's toolbar. (To jump
right to the Search field, press Command-Option-F.) Mail begins displaying results in the mes-
sage list immediately—sometimes even before you finish typing.
To hide the results and return to the message list, click the X icon in the Search box.
Note:
Searches in Mail are insensitive to case and encompass accented characters.
For example, searching for
ipad
will match
iPad
, and searching for
creme brulee
will
match
Crème Brûlée
.
Use Suggestions and Tokens
As you type your search term, the Search field displays a drop-down list of suggestions—not of
matching messages, but of text or other elements Mail thinks you might be looking for (
Fig-
ure 11
). If you see what you're looking for in the list, you can save yourself a bit of typing by
selecting it, either by clicking it or by pressing the arrow keys and then Return.
