Searching for Messages

Searching Basics Using the Message View Using the Photo View Using the Attachment View Refining Your Search Results More Search Tips

Searching Basics

If you have a lot of email in your AT&T Mail account, it can be hard to find a particular message. You may not remember what folder you put the message in, or you might remember only the name of an attachment. Fortunately, AT&T Mail provides an easy way to find your email messages quickly, and it provides several ways to view and refine your search results.

On the Search Results page, you can:

  • Display thumbnails of all of the photos attached to the messages in the search results by clicking the Photo View link.

  • Display a list of all attachments to the messages (including both photos and text attachments) in the search results by clicking the Attachment View link.

  • Return to the message view, after going to the photo or attachments view, by clicking the Message View link.

  • Refine your search in any view using the links in the Refine Results module.

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 direction.

 

Here’s How

  1. Go to the Welcome page, your inbox, or any folder in AT&T Mail.

  2. In the text field to the left of the Search buttons, enter 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 (such as a Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Excel, PDF, or any other file type), and then click the Search Mail button.

    Enter text and click the Search Mail button.

    You can enter the beginning of any word or phrase. It is not necessary to enter the entire exact text. For example, you can enter "rob" to find messages that include "rob", "robin", "robbie", or "robert".

    AT&T Mail searches all parts of the email messages in all of your folders (except Trash and Bulk), including all senders, recipients (To and CC), subjects, message bodies, attachment names, and most attachment contents. Then it displays your search results in the message view.

    Tip: You can search the Trash folder from the Advanced Search page.

    Using the example shown in step 2, your search results include all messages containing the string "rob".

    An example of search resultsEnlarge

    Notice that the search results include a snippet of the text with the search string highlighted in bold.

  3. In addition to searching for messages in your own email, you can initiate a search of the Web directly from AT&T Mail. Enter the text you want to search for in the text field to the left of the Search buttons, and then click the Search the Web button.

    Enter text, then click the Search the Web button.

    Yahoo! searches the web and displays the search results.

    An example of web search resultsEnlarge

 

What’s Next

You can look at the search results in several views, each with its own options:

Also, you can refine your search results with additional options.

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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.
  • Thumbnail: a small version of an image, often linked to a larger version.