Windows 7 - Anyone know how to search through the text in email rather than just headers?

Asked By JethroUK©

01-Feb-10 06:19 PM

Anyone know how to search through the text in email rather than just
headers?

01-Feb-10 07:44 PM

IMO it is not labeled properly, however, if you go to Edit - Find - Message -
and put the desired text in the "Message" field in that search dialog, it
will search the text within all messages for your desired word or phrase.

02-Feb-10 09:18 AM

Hi, Jethro.

What happens if you simply type (or paste) the text you are looking for into
the "Find a message" word wheel above the column headings in the Message
List window?  (That word wheel is always there, but it is VERY easy to
overlook.)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

02-Feb-10 10:09 AM

I have had to do the following in every version of Win 7 I have tested in the
past year.  I think it also applies to Vista.

1. Windows Desktop Search does not include \AppData in the Index.  WLM
messages are normally located under this folder.
Open Indexing Options (in Control Panel) and include \AppData (or
wherever your message store is located). Then rebuild the
index.

2. Email messages (.eml), RSS feed messages (.rss) and Newsgroup posts
(.nws) do not have a search ifilter assigned.
Look in Indexing Options, under Advanced - File Types to see if they have
the Mime filter assigned.
If not, this article applies to Win 7 64 bit, but I suspect it will work
for Vista also:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969165


--
Dave N.
MS-MVP (Mail)
Windows 7  Ultimate
http://download.live.com/wlmail

02-Feb-10 12:42 PM

You can get a super search utility (Agent Ransack) for free that, among
other things will search mail and news texts. Go to:

http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/Page.aspx?page=download

02-Feb-10 01:23 PM

Indexing AppData is not a good idea!  It means that the indexer will be
constantly adding and removing files from the index because AppData
includes most temporary files.  This slows down your PC and is not
recommended by Microsoft.  It is also pointless.

The proper solution is to store mail in a user folder, like a subfolder of
Documents.

Doug M. in NJ

02-Feb-10 02:32 PM

You're probably right, moving the message store may be better than my
shotgun approach.
Although, I have never noticed any slowdown of my computer in the past year.
It works fine for me.


--
Dave N.
MS-MVP (Mail)
Windows 7  Ultimate
http://download.live.com/wlmail

02-Feb-10 03:50 PM

MS /do/ recommend having your store folder in LocalAppData, otherwise they
would choose some other default location for it. That's where Outlook and
OE save their data by default, and both of these are indexed in a standard
installation. The answer is to add the store folder (the one called Windows
Live Mail) to indexed locations, together with any other bits of AppData
that you might be interested in having indexed.

The store folder contains a folder called Sentinel, which holds a single
file called WLMailSearchSentinel.eml. It consists of a single header line
and a more-or-less random string like qazwsxplmokn. A search for this
string, using Windows (Desktop) Search on XP or the Vista or Win7 search
box, will tell you whether the store folder is being indexed or not. If it
is, then full text searches should work in the Find a message word wheel in
WLMail.

As it happens, I have my store folder on a separate drive, because there
just is not room for it on my system drive...
--
Noel

02-Feb-10 06:01 PM

Hello Ildhund,

I did not say that no sub folder of \AppData should ever be indexed.  I
said that the entire folder should not be indexed, as was proposed by
Dave.  I stand by my statement.

Doug M. in NJ