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# Searching mailboxes

You can search for text in all mailboxes or in selected mailboxes. You can search in the From or To address fields, the subject line, or the entire message (which includes the address fields and the subject line). Searching entire messages also searches for text in the names of attachments.

## To search mailboxes:

Select any mailboxes you want to search. Shift-click to select mailboxes that are next to each other in the list, or Command-click to select mailboxes that are not next to one another.

Click in the Search field in the toolbar, or press Command-Option-F.

Type the text you want to find in the Search field.

Mail immediately begins to search messages in the selected mailboxes.

Narrow or widen the search results using options in the header above the results.

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To change which mailboxes are searched, click All Mailboxes or the name of a mailbox you selected.

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To change which part of each message is searched, choose Entire Message, From, To, or Subject. If you choose Entire Message, you can specify criteria with the text you type in the search field to narrow the results.

Specifying criteria in the Spotlight search field

To save your search as a Smart Mailbox so you can easily find and view the current search results and future messages that match the search at any time, click Save.

If you search the From, To, or Subject fields in selected mailboxes, Mail finds messages that contain any of the words you entered in the Search field.

If you search an entire message or search in all mailboxes, Mail finds only messages containing words that have the same prefix, or the same beginning letters, as any of the words you entered in the Search field. The words can be in any order. For example, if you enter “box” in the Search field, the results would include “boxcar” but would not include “mailbox,” because “box” is not part of the beginning of that word.

You can set Mail preferences to search the Trash and Junk mailboxes, and encrypted messages.

You can search mailboxes using Spotlight in the menu bar. To narrow the search to certain kinds of documents, type “kind:” followed by one of these phrases, depending on what you’re searching for: email message, mail message, mail mailbox, mail cached IMAP mailbox, mail stationery.

You can also use Spotlight to search image files and attachments.

### Related Topics

Searching a message