Zimbra Web Client Search Tips

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Search Tips - Query language description

This advanced topic describes in detail the search grammar used for Zimbra's Search feature. Some type of query is always applied to produce the view that you see in the Zimbra interface. You can set your General Options to 'Always show search string' to see the current query in the Search toolbar. For example, when this option is set, clicking your Inbox folder executes the query 'in:inbox'.

The query language uses a keyword with a semicolon followed by the criteria as allowed by that keyword. In the above example, the keyword is "in:" and the criterion is "inbox".

You can prefix any keyword with the word "not" to specify items that do not have that criterion, for example "not in:inbox".

Search is case insensitive, meaning that "in:inbox" is the same as "in:Inbox".

Queries can be added together to make a single compound AND statement.

Keyword Descriptions and Examples

content: Specifies text that the message must contain. For example, content:bananas finds all items containing the word "bananas".

from: Specifies a sender name or email address that is in the From header. This can be text, as in "John Smith III", an email address such as "joe@acme.com", or a domain such as "zimbra.com".

to: Same as from: except that it specifies one of the people to whom the email was addressed in the To: header.

cc: Same as from: except that it specifies a recipient in the Cc: header of the message.

subject: Specifies text that must appear in the subject header of the message. An example might be subject:new vacation policy.

in: Specifies a folder. For example, in:sent would show all items in your 'Sent' folder.

has: Specifies an attribute that the message must have. The types of object you can specify are "attachment", "phone", or "url". For example, has:attachment would find all messages which contain one or more attachments of any type.

filename: Specifies an attachment file name. For example, filename:query.txt would find messages with a file attachment named "query.txt".

type: Specifies a search within attachments of a specified type. The types of attachment you can specify are "text", "word", "excel", and "pdf". For example, type:word "hello" finds messages with attachments that are Microsoft Word documents and searches within those attachments for the word "hello".

The following characters cannot be part of your text-string to search the subject and content of emails. ~ ' ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _- + ? / { }[ ] ; :

The exception is the colon (:) which can be used to search for a specific time of day if quotes are put around the time. For example type "9:30" to find a message that has the time of 9:30 in the body or subject.

attachment: Specifies any item with a certain type of attachment. For example, attachment:word would find all messages with Word attachments.

is: Searches for messages with a certain status. Allowable values are "unread", "read", "flagged", "unflagged", "sent", and "received". For example, is: unread will find all unread messages.

date: Use this keyword to specify a date, in either mm/dd/yyyy or yyyy/dd/mm format. For example, date:2/1/20007 would find messages dated February 1, 2007.

after: Specifies mail sent after a certain date. For example, after:2/1/2007 specifies mail sent after February 1, 2007.

before: Same as after: except specifies mail sent before the specified date.

size: Specifies messages whose total size, including attachments, is a specified number of bytes, kilobytes, or megabytes For example, size:12 kb would find messages that are exactly 12K in size.

larger: Similar to size: except specifies greater than the specified size.

smaller: Similar to size: except specifies smaller than the specified size.

tag: Finds messages which have been tagged with a specified tag. For example, tag:amber will find message that have a tag called "amber" applied.

my: Use to specify a previously saved search. For example, my:reviews would execute a query that had been saved under the name "reviews". Note that the name of the saved search is 'not' the content of the search query.

message: Constrains search to a particular DB message ID. Used by administrators. For example, message:123 would find the message that had an internal ID of 123.

conv: Use to search for conversations by a particular DB message ID. Used by administrators.

conv-count: Constrains searches to conversations containing the specified number of messages. For example, conv-count:3 would find conversations that had exactly three messages in them.

conv-minm: Search for conversations of at least the specified number of messages. For example, conv-minm:3 would find conversations containing three or more messages.

conv-maxm: Same as conv-minm: except specifies maximum number of messages in the conversation.

conv-start: Use to specify the date of the first message in the conversation.

conv-end: Use to specify the date of the last message in the conversation.

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