Searching for Messages

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Searching for Messages

If you need to find email that isn’t directly related to the message you’re reading, you can use the AT&T Mail search feature. With this tool, AT&T Mail searches all parts of the email messages in all of your folders (except Spam), including all senders, recipients (To: and Cc:), subjects, message bodies, attachment names, and most attachment contents. It then displays the search results on a separate tab. You can click on any message in the search results to display the full message content, drag-and-drop a message to a folder, or delete a message, just as you would in your Inbox or any folder.

 

Here’s How

  1. Open AT&T Mail.

  2. At the top left under the Check Mail and New buttons, type any part of the message(s) you want to find, including the name of a photo file or the content in or name of an attachment; then click the Go button.

    Type text and click the Go button.

    Tip: If you want to find a word or phrase you searched for in the past, click the Recent Message Searches icon (Recent Message Searches icon) to display a selection list of your recent searches. Select the search you want to repeat, and click the Go button.

    Click the recent searches icon.

    You can type the beginning of any word or phrase; you don’t need to type the entire exact text. For example, you can type "concert" to find messages that include "concert", "concerto", or "concerts".

    Using the example shown in step 2, your search results include all messages containing the string (or keyword) "concert".

    An example of search resultsEnlarge

    For each message found, the search results list the sender, subject, date received, location (folder), size, status, a thumbnail for each attachment (if one or more accompanied the message), and a snippet of the message containing the search string. The words that meet the search criteria are highlighted. For example, if you search for the string "concert", your search results might look something like this:

    An example of highlighted search termsEnlarge

    By default, the messages are sorted by date with the most recent message at the top. As in a mail folder, you can click any of the column titles to sort by sender, subject, or folder. Click the same column title again to sort in the opposite order.

  3. If you want to condense the list, click to clear the check box next to Show Snippets at the top of the results view.

    Clear the Show Snippets check box to hide snippets in the search results.

    The search results appear without the snippets.

    Search results with snippets hiddenEnlarge

  4. To show the snippets again, click the check box next to Show Snippets again.

 

What’s Next

Too many search results to read through? You can refine the results to get to the message you want more quickly.

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Words to Know

  • Attachment: a separate file included as part of an email message; for example, a multimedia or document file.
  • Folder: a container that holds individual elements specific to the context; for example, email messages in AT&T Mail or bookmarks in the Bookmarks Sidebar module.
  • Snippet: a few lines of text from the body of an email message or web page, displayed in search results.