Keyword search

Search field reference

Field	Description
Sender	The RFC 822 sender (email address and display name) and the envelope FROM.
Recipient (To/Cc/Bcc)	The RFC 822 To, Cc, and Bcc recipients (email addresses and display names) and all envelope RCPT addresses.
Sender/Recipient address	Matches by email address — both envelope sender/recipient addresses and the From and To addresses in the RFC 822 headers.
Subject	Matches the mail subject.
Mail and attachment body	Matches every mail body, including the contents of attachments.
Attachment name	The filename of a mail attachment. If a message has a .ZIP attachment that contains other files, the hierarchy might look like: ee.eml [ aa.zip { bb.zip ( bb.doc, bb.txt ), cc.doc } ] In that case the searchable filenames are aa.zip, bb.doc, bb.txt, and cc.doc. bb.zip is not searchable.
Attachment abstract	Matches the abstracts of every mail attachment.

Auto-complete

When the search field is set to Sender, Recipient, or Sender/Recipient, an auto-complete popup appears as you type to help you find the right email address. To use it:

Set the field to Sender, Recipient, or Sender/Recipient.
A helper popup appears showing email addresses whose prefix matches what you have typed. Pick one with the keyboard or mouse and it is filled into the input.

Note: when signed in as an organization administrator or auditor, auto-complete works across domains.

Group list

A button next to the search-term field toggles the Group list. Click it to open the list, pick a domain and a group, and the members of that group are shown below.
Clicking a member inserts a new condition before the first one, with the member's email pre-filled.

Note:

When you add member emails this way, the first one combines with the rest of the conditions using AND, but additional members are combined with each other using OR. The effective condition becomes (member1 OR member2 OR member3) AND (other conditions).
If the Group list is open when you run a search, the next time you open this screen the Group list will be open automatically; conversely, if you searched with it hidden, it will stay hidden on your next visit.

Adding and removing conditions

MailBase Advanced Search supports multi-field, multi-condition queries. You can add or remove conditions (up to 20) and combine them with Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to express exactly the search you want.

Search keywords must not contain & | ! ( )

You may enter keywords in the same or different fields across the conditions (up to ten) and combine them using Boolean operators. Each condition takes a single keyword only and must not include & | ! ( ) or similar.

Fuzzy search

MailBase defaults to "exact search." For example, entering "網擎資訊" requires the specified field or the full text to contain the entire phrase "網擎資訊" to be matched.

If you are not sure the exact phrase appears, tick "Fuzzy match." The system then matches a fuzzy form of your keywords — entering "網擎資訊" will match a message whose body or subject contains the substrings "網擎," "擎資," and "資訊."

Search Traditional + Simplified together

By default, MailBase searches Traditional Chinese for Traditional input and Simplified Chinese for Simplified input. To search both at once, tick the "Traditional + Simplified" option:

Beyond character-by-character conversion, the option also performs word-by-word conversion. For example, when you enter the Traditional term "電腦" the system also queries the equivalents "电脑," "計算機," and "计算机." MailBase ships with a built-in dictionary; administrators can also customize or upload their own dictionary — see "7.2.12 Search-related settings" for details.

Wildcard search

Two wildcard symbols are supported — "?" and "*" — with the meanings below:

Symbol

Meaning

Matches a single character. Entering wom?n returns messages containing "woman," "women," and so on.

Matches zero or more characters. Entering admi* returns messages containing "admin," "administrative,"

"administrator," and so on.

Wildcard queries always use AND as the Boolean operator (this cannot be changed). Wildcards work for English characters only.

Advanced keyword search

The difference between Advanced Keyword Search and Keyword Search is that you can specify the order in which conditions are evaluated. The details are:

Search mode

Description

Keyword Search

Suppose you enter these conditions:

The system first finds messages whose sender is Mary or whose recipient is John, then filters those for ones whose subject is "Happy birthday." Call the result of those steps "Result A." Next the system searches the mail archives for messages whose body or attachment text contains "Love," and unions that with Result A. Finally the combined result is shown in the Web UI. In other words, the conditions are evaluated top to bottom in the order the system defines.

Advanced Keyword Search

Suppose you enter these conditions:

The system splits the query into two parts. The first part finds messages whose sender is Mary or whose recipient is John across all mail archives. The second part finds messages whose subject is "Happy birthday" or whose body/attachment contains "Love." The two parts are then intersected. In effect the search behaves like an arithmetic expression: it reads left to right and respects parentheses, just like math. The biggest advantage is that you can decide where the parentheses go.

Step-by-step

Open Advanced Search and choose "Advanced Keyword Search."
Click the input box; as you type, the system shows the matching hints.
If the hint popup disappears for any reason, press the Down arrow key on the keyboard at the position where the hints should appear; the hints reappear immediately.
When you have entered the full expression, click the "Search" button at the bottom to run the query. The supported symbols and field codes are listed below:

Symbol	Name	Description
(	Open parenthesis	Must be paired with a closing parenthesis. Indicates a grouping — for example, @F:("mary wang") searches for messages whose sender is "mary wang." Parentheses also dictate evaluation order. For example, @F:(mary) ! (@R:(john) & @S:(today)) finds messages whose sender is "mary" and then excludes those whose recipient is "john" and whose subject is "today."
)	Close parenthesis	Must be paired with an open parenthesis. Same role as described above.
&	AND	The Boolean AND operator — both Condition A and Condition B must be satisfied.
\|	OR	The Boolean OR operator — Condition A or Condition B (or both) must be satisfied.
!	NOT	The Boolean NOT operator — A NOT B means Condition A must be satisfied and Condition B must not.
"	Exact search	Used in pairs. For example, @S:("andy lin") only matches subjects that contain the full phrase "andy lin" — subjects containing only "andy" or only "lin" are not matched. To use fuzzy search instead, drop the quotes — for example, @S:(andy lin) matches any subject that contains both "andy" and "lin" regardless of position. (See the Fuzzy Search section above for details.)
@	Field selector	Introduces a search condition; the character that follows must be a field code.
F	Sender	The RFC 822 sender (email address and display name) and the envelope FROM.
R	Recipient (To/Cc/Bcc)	The RFC 822 To, Cc, and Bcc recipients (email addresses and display names) and all envelope RCPT addresses.
e	Sender/Recipient address	The RFC 822 senders and recipients (email addresses and display names) plus every envelope FROM and envelope RCPT address.
S	Subject	Matches the mail subject.
B	Mail and attachment body	Matches every mail body, including the contents of attachments.
A	Attachment name	The filename of a mail attachment. If a message has a .ZIP attachment containing other files, the hierarchy might look like: ee.eml [ aa.zip { bb.zip ( bb.doc, bb.txt ), cc.doc } ] In that case the searchable filenames are aa.zip, bb.doc, bb.txt, and cc.doc. bb.zip is not searchable.
a	Attachment abstract	Matches the abstracts of every mail attachment.

Using fuzzy search

In Advanced Search, simply omit the double quotes around the keyword to use fuzzy mode. For example, @S:("andy lin") is an exact-match search, while @S:(andy lin) is a fuzzy search.

Accidental-send protection

When using Advanced Keyword Search, if you press Enter several times while interacting with the suggestion popup, the system does not immediately run the search. The query only starts after you click the Search button at the bottom — this prevents accidentally submitting an incomplete or incorrect query string.

Keyword restrictions

The restrictions are:

A keyword must be at least two characters long — for example, @S:(a) is invalid.
It must not contain & | ! ( ) — for example, @S:(mary ! john) is invalid.
It must not start with a plus or minus sign — for example, @S:(+mary) is invalid.
A single input can be at most 200 bytes.