Punctuation is treated as white space in search strings with the following exceptions:
-
Email addresses and Internet hostnames – Treated as single searchable tokens.
Example: user1@mycompany.com is treated as a single searchable token.
-
Period (.) – When not followed by whitespace, a period is treated as part of a word.
Example: 1.2 is treated as a single searchable token.
-
Hyphen (-) – When a token containing a hyphen also contains a number, the complete item is treated as a part of the number.
Examples:
MD-1800 is considered a searchable word, including the hyphen.
hyphen-madness is treated as two words ("hyphen" "madness") with the hyphen treated as whitespace.
Defining Search Criteria
When you enter terms in Basic Search mode, the search strings are treated in the same manner as Advanced Search criteria formed with "All" "Entire Message" "contains" criteria.
Text-Based Search Strings
A single string or phrase of text, to be matched exactly as entered. Valid formats are: a single word (with no whitespace) or a single double-quoted sequence of words (separated by spaces). For example:
| Sales |
Matches "sales guide" but not "Salesmen". |
| "Reviews due now" |
Matches "performance reviews due now" as well as "all reviews are due now" (due to Stop Words being ignored). This does not match "reviews for all employees are due now". |
Integer Number-Based Search Strings
A single integer string in bytes to be matched exactly to an index attribute as entered. Valid formats are: a single number (with no whitespace). To find a range, use a Compound Search String. For example:
| stored_size:100 |
Matches all emails with an actual message size on disk of 100 bytes. |
| size:1536 |
Matches all emails with a raw size of 1.5KB. |
Multi-Text Search Strings
A collection of Text-based words or phrases, separated by spaces. Each item listed must match somewhere, but they do not have to be adjoining or found in the order supplied. For example:
| "team meeting" reminder |
Matches the phrase "team meeting reminder" as well as the phrase "reminder about the team meeting". This does not match "reminder to the team about the meeting". |
| "final exam" "open book" |
Matches the phrase "The final exam will be open book" as well as the phrase "an open book final exam". This does not match "the final exam is open to anyone with a book". |
Wildcards
Wildcards are characters in search strings that can match arbitrary characters in a search. They can only be used as part of a single word, and are not allowed as the first character of a search word. They are also not allowed in any double-quoted string containing multiple words (i.e., spaces). Wildcards are not allowed as part of a phrase, or any search string that is comprised of more than one word, regardless of the use of double quotes. For example:
| nation* |
Matches "this nation" and "nationality". This does not match "multinational" or "condemnation". |
| p???e |
Matches any 5-letter word that starts with "p" and ends with "e". This does not match "pore" (only 4 letters), or "pounce" (6 letters). |
The question mark (?) is a single-character wildcard, matching a single occurrence of any one character. The number of question marks used denotes the exact number of characters that must be matched. For example:
| luck? |
Matches "lucks" and "lucky", but not "luck", "pluck" or "lucked". |
| J???son |
Matches "Johnson" and "Jackson", but not "Jason" or "Judson". |
The asterisk (*) as a multi-character wildcard, matching zero or more occurrences of any and all characters. For example:
| Mark* |
Matches "marker", "marketing", and "Mark" |
Domain-Based Search Strings
The domain part, or everything after the at-sign (@), of an email. For example:
| example.com |
Matches "anyuser@example.com". This does not match "anyuser@sub.example.com". |
| sub2.example.com |
Matches "allusers@sub2.example.com". This does not match "allusers@sub.example.com" or "allusers@example.com". |
Compound Search Strings
When creating compound search strings, the keywords 'AND' and 'OR' must be capitalized.
(This is used only in Keyword Expressions.) A combination of two or more strings in any of the above formats (Text-based, Multi-Text, Wildcard or Domain as applicable to the fields being searched) or with other Compound search strings, each separated by the keywords AND or OR. Surround logical groupings with parentheses as needed to determine order of operations. For example:
| subject:(Engineering AND "Meeting today") |
Matches items that contain the word "Engineering" as well as the phrase "Meeting today", in any order in the Subject field. |
| body:(Version AND (1.1* OR 1.2*)) |
Matches items whose body contains, in any order, BOTH the word "version" and a word that starts with either "1.1" or "1.2". |
| body:((Version AND 1.1*) OR 1.2*) |
Matches items that contain a word that starts with "1.2" anywhere in the body of the message, OR items that contain both the word "version" and a word that starts with "1.1", in any order anywhere in the body of the message. |
Compound search strings of increasing complexity can be constructed by combining multiple compound phrases themselves, to create a single query that identifies multiple search locations in addition to multiple search patterns. For example:
| (from:(ryand@myco.com OR ryandouglas@myco.com) AND body:datasheets) |
Matches all items sent from ryand@myco.com or ryandouglas@myco.com that ALSO contain the word "datasheets" somewhere in the body of the item. |
| ((to:user1@mycompany.com AND subject:party) OR (from:user2@yourcompany.com AND subject:gala)) |
Matches all items sent to user1@mycompany.com with the word "party" in the Subject field, as well as all messages from user2@yourcompany.com with the word "gala" in the Subject field. |
Stop Words
Stop Words are common words that are ignored in searches, and may be omitted.
Recognized Stop Words are:
a, an, and, are, as, at, be, but, by, for, if, in, into, is, it, no, not, of, on, or, such, that, the, their, then, there, these, they, this, to, was, will, with
Stop Words are also ignored in wildcard searches, so make sure that the wildcards are attached to letters that do not comprise a Stop Word in its entirety. For example:
| (the AND meeting) |
Equivalent to entering "meeting" or "the meeting". This matches both "no meeting minutes" and "the meeting". This does not match "the meetings". |
| be* |
The "be" part is ignored, so this is treated as just * which matches all words. |
Punctuation in Search Strings
In general, punctuation is treated as a whitespace, and thus a delimiter between searchable items. However, the following punctuation exceptions exist:
- Email addresses and Internet hostnames are treated as a single searchable token. For example:
- If you enter the search criteria "user1@mycompany.com", the address is treated as a single searchable token.
- Period (.) – A period that is not followed by whitespace is treated as part of a word, that is, a searchable token, and the period is searchable. For example:
- If you enter the search token "192.168.0.1" or "1.2", the period is included in the search results, and treated as a single searchable token.
- Hyphen (-) – When a token containing a hyphen also contains a number, the complete item is treated as a part of the number. For example:
- Searching on "MD-1800" is considered a searchable word, including the hyphen.
- Searching "hyphen-madness" is treated as two words ("hyphen" "madness") with the hyphen treated as whitespace.
A Basic search is treated the same as a search using Advanced Search criteria formed with "All" "Entire Message" "contains" criteria. Using "Entire Message" "contains" with a string without quotes does not search for the string. Rather, it treats the string as a list of tokens to be joined with ANDs. You must use quotes around the string or use "Entire Message (phrase)" to search for the string.
