Mailbird for Mac can offer its customers a variety of ways to search for specific emails. In this article, we will take you through the most common and useful approaches to doing this.
It's important to note that this is just the beginning of the road for Mailbird for Mac, as we intend to gradually (and rapidly) expand the different ways in which our customers can search through their emails. Therefore, if you are looking for an even more sophisticated or simpler way to search through your emails, then watch this space: we plan on delivering some major improvements over time to provide you with the most effective way of searching through your emails.
Keywords
At the top of Mailbird for Mac, you will find a search field where you can type in relevant keywords in order to find specific emails. Once you have typed in the keywords, simply hit Enter and a list of relevant emails will appear in your list.
Avatars
A popular way of searching for messages involves using a sender's avatar. By clicking on a sender's avatar, you will be able to see a list of all email messages from that sender, as shown below.
Search Operators
Mailbird for Mac also includes the option of using 'Search Operators' in order to find specific emails or attachments for each email account which is connected to it.
When carrying out a search in the search field at the top, the results will also contain (by default) results which partly match the word(s) that you have typed into it. Therefore, if (for example) you would like to search for an exact phrase, then quotation marks must be used (e.g. "blue pen").
Please keep in mind that, unless you have indicated otherwise via the advanced Search Operators, any search will be performed by default across all folders except Spam and Trash.
To begin a search, simply click on the search field at the top of Mailbird for Mac, as shown in the image below:
As mentioned above, you can use special queries and 'operators' to filter your search results. It's important to note that you can also combine multiple operators in order to filter your results even further. Below you will find a list of the operators you can use, and further down we will take you through some examples on how to use them.
| Query | Description |
| (Text) | Shows a list of messages that contain whatever word you have typed into the field (as shown in the 'Keywords' section at the beginning of this article. |
| Email Address | Shows a list of messages received from or sent to the email address which you have typed into the field. |
| from:(TEXT) | Shows a list of messages received from contacts that contains words from TEXT inside its name or email address. |
| to:(TEXT) | Shows a list of messages that were sent to contact that contains words from TEXT inside its name or email address. |
| cc:(TEXT) | Shows a list of messages has a contact in CC field that contains words from TEXT inside its name or email address. |
| bcc:(TEXT) | Shows a list of messages has a contact in BCC field that contains words from TEXT inside its name or email address (those will be only messages sent by us as BCC is hidden for receivers). |
| subject:(TEXT) | Shows a list of messages that contains words from TEXT inside its subject. |
| in:FOLDER or label:FOLDER | Shows a list of messages from folder with name equal to FOLDER. |
| in:FOLDER/SUBFOLDER or label:FOLDER/SUBFOLDER | Shows a list of messages from subfolder with name equal to SUBFOLDER that is nested under a folder with name equal to FOLDER. |
| in:anywhere | Shows a list of all messages including the ones from Spam and Trash folders (by default, these two folders are skipped in a search). |
| is:read | Shows a list of messages which have already been read. |
| is:unread | Shows a list of messages which have not been read yet. |
| is:starred or has:yellow-star | Shows a list of starred messages. |
| is:unstarred | Shows a list of messages that are not starred. |
| is:important | Shows a list of messages marked as Important. |
| is:snoozed | Shows a list of snoozed messages. |
| has:attachment | Shows a list of messages with one or more attachments. |
| has:userlabels | Shows a list of messages that are in one of your custom folders which you have created. |
| has:nouserlabels | Shows a list of messages that are not in any of the custom folders which you have created. |
| filename:(TEXT) | Shows a list of messages that have an attachment which contains words from TEXT in their name. |
| newer:DATE or newer_than:DATE or since:DATE | Shows a list of messages that were received/sent in or after the date specified in DATE. Date needs to be in yyyy/mm/dd or mm/dd/yyyy format. |
| older:DATE or older_than:DATE or before:DATE | Shows a list of messages that were received/sent before the date specified in DATE. Date needs to be in yyyy/mm/dd or mm/dd/yyyy format. |
| larger:SIZE or size:SIZE | Shows a list of messages whose size is equal or bigger then the one specified in SIZE. Size needs to be specified as number of bytes or in format of xxK for kilobytes (eg. 300K) or xxM for megabytes (eg. 2M). |
| smaller:SIZE | Shows a list of messages whose size is smaller than the one specified in SIZE. Size needs to be specified as number of bytes or in format of xxK for kilobytes (eg. 300K) or xxM for megabytes (eg. 2M). |
| rfc822msgid:ID | Shows a message which has a header Message-Id equal to the one specified in ID (which can be found in the source of the message). |
| Operator | Description |
| AND | Shows a list of messages that match all subqueries, eg. from:John AND subject:Test. |
| OR or {} | Shows a list of messages that match only one of the subqueries, eg. from:John OR subject:Test or {from:John subject:Test} |
| NOT or - or ! | Shows a list of messages that do not match the subquery, eg. -subject:Test or NOT from:Pawel |
Additional information:
- All the operators are case insensitive, except AND, OR and NOT. The search text is also case insensitive.
- If you are searching with a single word as TEXT, then you don't need to use parentheses, e.g. from:John.
- However, if your search contains two or more words, then they are necessary, e.g. from:(John Doe).
- Parentheses can also be used to create complex queries (similar to equations) with multiple AND, OR or NOT operators, eg. (from:John OR subject:Test) AND has:attachments.
- Curly brackets can be used instead of OR operator, eg. {from:John subject:Test}, and will work the same as from:John OR subject:Test.
- If there is no operator between subqueries, then it will behave as if there is an AND operator, eg. from:John subject:Test works the same as from:John AND subject:Test.
Example Search Queries
We will now take you through a few example searches in Mailbird for Mac to provide you with additional guidance on how to run these more complex searches.
- Searching for emails which are marked as IMPORTANT.
- Searching for emails using AND.
The image below shows us what will appear if we search for all emails in our inboxes which have been marked as Important.
In the image below, you will see a different search which includes the use of AND, in order to show us a list of all emails marked as Important, but also older than a certain date.
If you notice a message which appears below Search results, and reads "We're syncing your messages, so results may be incomplete", then we would like to reassure you that this perfectly normal. By default, Mailbird for Mac will keep searching both your email server and your device for further emails to add to the list.
If you have any questions about using Mailbird for Mac's Message Search, don't hesitate to reach out to our Customer Happiness Team, and someone will always be happy to provide you with further information or guidance.