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Microsoft Outlook Search Feature not searching for partial words or numbers

Anonymous
2024-04-25T08:27:24+00:00

Hello,

I have several associates who are trying to search historical emails looking for invoice numbers in the subject of the email, this invoice number could be anything like #INV123456, if they search for just the numbers, in this case 123456 nothing comes up and in some cases when they search for the whole 'word' nothing comes up either!

These invoices may be in shared folders or inboxes as well but I have spent hours investigating and can't understand why outlook can't find these emails! I have re-indexed the mailbox, turned of cached mode etc, even tried installing a search macro using VB developer mode!

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For home

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-09-19T23:27:13+00:00

    Hi @Eleni

    I also have the same issue/question

    if i understand the explanation correctly microsoft only supports "prefix matching" when searching, but doesnt currently support "Suffix matching" ?
    is that right.

    i have exactly the same results when searching for Invoice numbers, when i ignore the prefix (such as the INV1234567, and searching for 1234567, and dont get any results when an email includes the full string.)

    not sure on the design, but i would imagine prefix and suffix matching should be considered when searching for partial matchs

    Cheers

    Dillon

    4 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2024-09-19T23:33:33+00:00

    100% agree. as far as I know, outlook and gmail have ALWAYS been including suffix for search. why the design change?

    10 people found this answer helpful.
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