UIS Tip of the Week: Searching for E-mail Messages in Thunderbird

Why is it that the amount of time we have to search for something is inversely proportional to its importance? I recently had to dig up an e-mail message I originally sent to my boss about two months ago. I didn't have much time to find it, so the pressure was on. I knew which folder I saved the message in, but darned if I could remember which day I sent it. Fortunately, I was in luck.

Thunderbird has a niftly little search feature that enables you to search for mail messages right away. If you need to find every e-mail you sent to your professor, or all the e-mail messages you received about this year's budget, no problem.

Searching for E-mail Messages in Thunderbird

1. Go to the folder on whose messages you want to search.
2. Select the part of the message on which you want to search (Subject, Sender, Subject or Sender, Entire Message, Find in Message) by clicking the down arrow in the text field.

3. Enter the word(s) (name, key word, etc.) on which you want to search.

As you type, Thunderbird will automatically display e-mail messages that contain those letter combinations.

5. To display the original list of messages (before you performed the search), just delete the text you entered in the search text area.