Email Help

Inbox.com allows you to perform two methods of search. You can quick search through search column in the email menu or use advanced search allowing you to narrow your search by setting more search criteria.

When you use the quick search field, Inbox.com searches for your terms within subject, email body, and address list (all addresses included in from, to, cc and bcc). For example, if you search for example for word "Peter", it will return all emails that contain "Peter" in the subject, email body or email address.

If you want to make your search more specific, e.g., you want to search for an email from a specific user that includes certain words, we recommend you to use the advanced search.

Learn how to search your emails and get the best search results:

Wildcard Searches

Inbox.com uses a multiple character wildcard search by default, so if you type pete, you will get search results that include pete, peter or peters, etc….

This is applied only to a string with the minimum length of 3 characters that consists of only letters and numbers.

If you use more strings in your search query, each string that match this condition is processed as wildcard. E.g. my car is black is processed as my car* is black*

To avoid automatic wildcard search or to search for exact term use double quotes around the string.

To use wildcard search for short 1 or 2 letters terms just add asterisk at the end of term, e.g. t* or th*. As a result you will get all words beginning with t respective th

Examples: Use the search query "pet" (with double quotes around) to search exactly for pet.

Use the search query pet to search for words beginning with pet, Peter, Peters, petanque, etc...

You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search, e.g., "*Peter" to search for emails from any Peter.

To perform a single character wildcard search use a question mark "?".

Example: if you type "te?t" you can find emails contaning the terms text, test and other term combinations.

Capitalization

Inbox.com searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case.

Example: searches for peter brown, Peter Brown, and pEtEr BrOwN will all return the same results.

Automatic "AND" Searches

If you want to search for an email that includes two or more search terms, just type them one after another. There is no need to include "and" between terms.

Example: "John Peters bike" will find emails that contain all three of these terms.

"OR" Queries

If you include OR between the search terms, Inbox.com returns emails that include at least one of your search terms.

Example: to find emails that contain vacation or holidays just type in "vacation OR holidays".

Automatic Exclusion of Common Words

Inbox.com ignores common words and characters such as "is" and "the", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results.

You will have better search results if you submit unique words.

Example: if you remember that the email you are looking for contains the words "meaning" and "life" type in "meaning life".

Phrase searches

Sometimes you'll only want to find an email that includes an exact phrase. In this case, simply put quotation marks around your search terms.

Example: if you want to find emails that contain the phrase "ten little indians" type "ten little indians" into the search field with the quotation marks.

Search Terms with More Than One Meaning

If your search term has more than one meaning (jaguar, for example, could refer to cars and animals) you can focus your search by putting a minus sign ("-") in front of words related the meaning you want to avoid.

Example: to find emails about jaguars - animal beast, but not jaguars - expensive cars type in: jaguar -car

Note: If you include a negative term in your search, be sure to include a space before the minus sign.

Escaping Special Characters

If your search term contains the following special characters: "+", "-", "*", "?", "\", you have to use backslash "\" before you type them.

Example: if you're looking for "3+4", type in 3\+4.

Note: Don't use a space between the backslash and the special character.

How do I perform a quick email search?

How do I perform an advanced email search?

What are search terms?