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🔍 Mail Search

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📋 Overview

Search is the heart of an email archive. Mail Archiver searches the full text of your archived mail — subject, body, sender and recipients — across all accounts you have access to, and returns results in milliseconds even on archives with millions of messages.

This guide covers the search interface, the query syntax, filters, sorting, paging, and what to do when you need to act on a result set.

ℹ️ Search only sees what you may see. Results are filtered by your account permissions. A non-administrator only ever finds mail from the mailboxes assigned to them — the restriction is applied in the query itself, not in the interface.

  1. Log in and choose Archive in the main menu
  2. The search bar sits above the result list

Opening the Archive without a search term lists your most recent emails, newest first. You can browse from there or narrow down with the filters.

🎯 The Search Interface

Field What it does
Search Term Full-text query — see Query Syntax below
From Only emails sent on or after this date
To Only emails sent on or before this date
Direction All, Incoming or Outgoing
Account Restrict to one mail account
Folders Restrict to one folder via the folder tree
Search Run the query
Reset Clear all filters

The search term matches the subject, body, sender and recipients (From, To, Cc, Bcc).

The folder tree

Folders are shown as a hierarchical tree on the left, mirroring the folder structure of the source mailbox — including nested folders. Click a folder to restrict the search to it, and use the collapse/expand control to fold the tree away when you need the screen space.

Selecting a folder does not change your search term; the two combine.

🧩 Query Syntax

The syntax is deliberately small. Everything below is what the application actually understands.

Plain words — and why prefixes work

Type one or more words; all of them must be present (an AND search):

invoice january

Finds emails containing both invoice and january in the searched fields.

💡 Partial words are matched automatically. Each word is treated as a prefix, so a search for isenb also finds isenboeck and isenböck, and rech finds Rechnung as well as Rechnungen. You do not need a wildcard character — there is none to type. This also means a very short term can return a lot; see Performance.

The search is case-insensitive. Invoice, invoice and INVOICE are the same query.

Exact phrases — quotes

Wrap text in double quotes to require the words next to each other in that order:

"important meeting"

Without quotes, important meeting would also match an email where the two words appear in unrelated sentences. With quotes, only the adjacent phrase matches.

Prefix a term with a field name and a colon to search only that field:

Syntax Searches in
subject:invoice Subject only
from:john Sender only
to:example.com Recipients only
body:important Body only

Field names are case-insensitive (Subject: works too), and each can be combined with quotes for a phrase:

subject:"monthly invoice"
body:"payment terms"

ℹ️ Four fields are supported: subject, body, from, to. Writing cc:someone or bcc:someone is not a field search — the term is treated as ordinary text and searched across all fields. To find a recipient who was only on Cc, search for the address or name without a prefix.

Combining everything

Filters and terms add up. This query finds emails from any insurance sender, with "car insurance" as an exact phrase in the body, and "invoice" in the subject:

"car insurance" body:"car insurance" subject:invoice from:insurance

Practical combinations:

from:amazon subject:"your order"        # order confirmations from Amazon
to:@example.com body:"contract"          # contracts sent to a domain
"rechnung" from:telekom                  # Telekom invoices
subject:mahnung                          # everything that looks like a reminder

Characters that are ignored

The query parser strips the characters & | ! ( ) : * from individual terms, because they carry meaning in the underlying full-text engine. If your search returns nothing unexpected, check whether a special character is the reason.

📊 Sorting and Paging

Sorting

Click a column header to sort. Sortable columns:

Column Sorts by
Subject Subject line, alphabetically
From Sender
To Recipients
Date Send date

Clicking the same header again reverses the direction. The default is newest first.

Page size

Choose how many results to show per page:

20 (default) · 50 · 75 · 100 · 150

A larger page shows more context but takes longer to render. Use the Previous / Next controls to move through the result pages; the result count tells you how many emails matched in total.

ℹ️ Your timezone applies to the dates shown. Displayed times are converted from UTC to your configured timezone, so the date you see matches your local calendar — useful when you are searching around midnight.

👁️ Working with Results

Each row shows the account, sender, subject, date, and a 📎 paperclip icon when the email has attachments. The paperclip is an indicator only — it is not a filter.

Click Details to open an email:

  • Full body (HTML or plain text)
  • Attachments, listed with the option to download each one
  • Download as EML — the complete message, for use elsewhere
  • Restore — copy the email back to a live mailbox

See Mailbox Migration for restoring emails to a mailbox.

✅ Acting on Many Results at Once

Results can be selected and processed in bulk. Turn on Selection Mode to get checkboxes, then:

  • Select All / Deselect All for the current page
  • Copy Selected — restore to a mailbox
  • Export Selected — as MBOX or EML
  • Delete Selected — from the archive

The counter shows "{selected} of {total} selected" as you work.

The selection limit

⚠️ A maximum of 250 emails can be selected at once (configurable via Selection:MaxSelectableEmails). Beyond that the interface shows "Maximum selections reached (250)" and Too Many — Split Required.

That limit exists because each operation has to hold the affected messages. The prompt "Split larger operations into multiple batches" is the intended workaround: work through the results in groups of 250 or fewer.

Attempting to exceed it shows: "Too many emails selected. Maximum allowed is 250 emails. Please reduce your selection or split into multiple operations."

Direct processing vs. background job

For Copy and Export you choose how the work runs:

Option Behaviour
Process on this page (wait for completion) The browser waits; good for a handful of emails
Process in background (monitor separately) Runs as a job; you can close the browser

Exports always run in the background:

"The export will run in the background and you will be able to download the result from the Jobs page once completed."

Find running and finished jobs on the Background Jobs page.

⚠️ Deleting is permanent. The confirmation is explicit: "Are you sure you want to permanently delete {n} selected email(s)? This action cannot be undone and each deletion will be logged for audit purposes." Deletions are recorded in the access log.

⚡ Performance and Large Archives

Search is backed by a PostgreSQL full-text index, so the difference between a fast and a slow search is usually how selective the query is.

Do:

  • Add a date range when you know roughly when the email arrived — this is the single most effective narrowing
  • Restrict to an account or folder when you know where the mail lives
  • Use several words instead of one very short one
  • Use field searches (subject:, from:) to cut out unrelated matches

Avoid:

  • A single short prefix such as re — as a prefix search it matches a huge share of your archive
  • Very wide date ranges combined with a common word
  • Browsing many pages when you could tighten the search instead

💡 If a search feels slow, the date range is usually the answer. Restricting to a month often turns a multi-second search into an instant one, because the index can skip most of the archive.

❓ Troubleshooting

Symptom Cause What to do
No results, but you expect some Search term too specific, or a typo Try fewer words; check spelling
cc:name finds nothing useful cc is not a supported field Search the name without a prefix
A special character breaks the query & \| ! ( ) : * are stripped Remove or replace the character
Too many results Common word or short prefix Add a date range or field search
"Too Many — Split Required" More than 250 emails selected Reduce the selection or split the operation
An export is missing It runs as a background job Check Background Jobs
Results look like they are missing Account permissions Confirm the mailbox is assigned to your user
Dates appear shifted Timezone conversion Check your timezone setting