The easiest way to find things in Outlook is the find button. When you click on the Find button on the standard toolbar (or press Ctrl and E, or click Tools, choose Find, and click Find), you’ll see this toolbar appear at the top of the main Outlook window:

 

 

You can type what you’re looking for in the Look In box. If you’ve searched for this word or phrase before, you can click the options arrow (▼) to the right of the text box and click on your search string.

Then, you can pick what folders you want to search for by clicking the options arrow (▼) next to Search In. The first four options (Inbox, All Mail Folders, Mail I Received, and Mail I Sent) are included in the menu by default. The next options (such as Inbox;Personal Folders in the sample menu) are folder combinations that you’ve searched in before. Or, you can click on Choose Folders to pick the folders yourself from a list.

 

Once you’ve filled in your criteria, click find now. Related messages will show up in the message pane (the same spot messages appear when you click on the inbox). You can then work with them as you would any other message, by deleting, moving, editing, replying, or forwarding them.

 

Once the search is complete, you can click Clear to clear the results and start a new search.

 

You can also click on Options to see the menu pictured on the right.  The first menu option (which is checked by default) tells Outlook to search all the text in every message. This can slow down your search if you selected a folder that has a lot of messages. So if you’re searching for just the title of an e-mail message, uncheck this option before you search.

 

Once your search is complete, you can also click on Options and click on Save Search as Search Folder. Outlook will prompt you to name the new folder, and then save it.

 

That’s all there is to using the basic search options in Outlook! It’s time to move onto the last menu option in the Find Options window: Advanced Find.