Search for my archived email

The Email Archiving add-on preserves, protects, and retrieves your organization's most sensitive communications. To perform a search in your archived email, you need a Microsoft 365 plan with Email Archiving.

There are two types of archived email searches available. Use a simple search when you have basic criteria, like searching for terms or text in emails and attachments. Use advanced search for more complex search queries that can narrow down your searches with specific criteria. For example, if you're searching for emails with the term "invoice," you can use simple search. If you're searching for emails with the term, "invoice" but without the term, "payment," you can use an advanced search.

Create a list

If there are common terms or addresses that will need to be used for repetitive or multiple searches, you can create a Keyword list or User list. This can help save time and prevents you from having to recreate a previously made search. Once a list is created, it can be modified but it can't be deleted.

1. Sign in to Email Archiving.
2. At the top right of the page, select the settings gear icon.
3. Select Manage.
4. Select New and choose the type of list you want to create.
   • Keyword: Choose this list for frequently used search terms.
   • User: Choose this list to search for frequently used email addresses.
5. Enter a List name.
6. Enter your Content, which are the search criteria separate by commas.
   
7. Select Save.

Create a new simple search

Simple search is the easiest way to run a search with basic criteria. You can search for terms or text in emails and/or attachments with as many conditions as needed.

1. Sign in to Email Archiving.
2. Select Searches.
3. Select New (or Create Search if this is your first search).
4. Under New Search, select the Simple tab for a default search.
5. Enter the preferred details for your search or select your previously created list.
   
6. Select Search.
7. Select Save to keep your search for later.

Note: Simple searches execute a search for all listed criteria. Multiple terms within the same fields search for any of the terms. For example, the search above is looking for the keywords “confidential” or “privileged" with the list "list name" and on June 5th.

Create a new advanced search

Advanced search uses the full power of our cloud-search engine and can be used to create more complex search queries that aren't available in simple search. You can exclude search terms while including other terms, specify date/time queries, and narrow down your search considerably.

1. Sign in to Email Archiving.
2. Select Searches.
3. Select New (or Create Search if this is your first search).
4. Under New Search, select the Advanced tab to fully customize your search.
5. Select Add Criteria or Group.
• Criteria: Select Add criteria and choose from the dropdown menu.
  

  Include or exclude specified criteria in your search by selecting is or is not. Customize each criteria with the options provided and then select Apply.

  Note: For Keyword, select and/or next to each term to toggle between the two.

  
• Group: Select Add Group to group your criteria. This helps you bundle criteria together for better organization and filters searches more accurately.
6. Select Search.
7. Select Save to keep your search for later.

Related step

• Run a saved search to send, download, or export archived content.

More info

• You can also add emails to Email Archiving.
• Here's how to manually create local backup files on Outlook or Thunderbird.