This searches for words in message content, subject heading and name of author. Results are ordered by relevance or date.
A search for Star Wars
will find messages containing the phrase Star Wars
but also the words Star and Wars alone.
It will look for complete words so it will not match Start or Warsaw.
Searching for "Star Wars" will find messages containing the complete phrase Star Wars.
It will not match Star or Wars by themselves.
It will also not match Star Warsaw.
Specifying words or phrases not to appear in the message.
A search for Star -Wars will find messages containing the word Star
but not containing the word Wars. Wars must not appear in the message text.
It will find Star Trek but not Star Wars.
Specifying words or phrases to be required. Searching for Star +Wars will find messages containing the word Star and the word Wars.
The word Wars is required. It will not find messages missing the word Wars.
Thus it will not find Star Trek unless the word Wars is also found in the message.
A wildcard (*) can be used to search for beginnings of words.
A search for Star* Wars* will match Star Wars, Star and Wars
but also Start and Warsaw.
The * must be at the end of the search terms.
Wildcards can only be used with words, not phrases.
Words shorter than 4 characters are ignored.
This search method is usually a lot faster the the others.
This will search in message content, subject heading and name of author for the complete search phrase. The results are always sorted by date (oldest first).
A search for Star Wars will match occurances of Star Wars,
not Star or Wars alone.
It will also match Star Warsaw but not Start Wars.
This will search for words of any length.
This is slower than word search but might be handy in some cases.
This is like Search for substring except that it only searches in subject headings.
This is like Search for substring except that it only searches in names of authors.