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Find text within an email Outlook 365

Anonymous
2017-03-16T15:34:43+00:00

I don't see how to find or find & replace text within an email in Outlook 365. When I search for a solution the Microsoft help response starts with " On the Format Text tab, in the Editing group, click Find."  I can't find a Format Text tab or an Editing group. I thought it should be on the ribbon, but the only things on my ribbon are File, Home, Send/Receive, Folder, View, Developer, Add-Ins, Quickhelp.

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-03-21T07:10:43+00:00

    Hi Rob,

    The Ctrl+F shortcut in Outlook is used to forward emails. If you want to find some text with keyboard shortcuts, you can use Ctrl+Shift+F. And if you want to find text in an email, you can open the email in a separate window and then click 'Find' in the email as the screenshot below. The shortcut for this option is 'F4'.

    ![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/078d93ae-1cd3-49f8-bb26-4f1e9e04675f?platform=QnA)

    Regards,

    Yang

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-03-20T16:39:35+00:00

    These instructions for searching in Replies and Forwards when the message is a new window work for me, although it seems like an additional step I don't usually want to take when I'm looking for text within a message. Why doesn't ctrl-F work as in other applications?

    Regarding the other instructions, when I follow them I keep getting lists of lots of email messages other than the one I have open -- it is searching all messages when I just want to search within the one open.

    I think the answer is that Microsoft doesn't have a good solution for this problem.

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2017-11-08T14:04:04+00:00

    When I open an email as a separate window, then use ctrl-shift-F to search for text within the email, it just gives me a list of emails that contain that text. It doesn't highlight the text within the open email. In other applications if I search for a text string using ctrl-F, it takes me to that text string. That is the functionality I am looking for and not finding.

    I am using Office 365 ProPlus version 1705.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-11-09T18:04:53+00:00

    Hi Rob,

    To find a word that you know is in a message, or a message from a particular person, type the word or person's name (you can use first, last, and partial names) in the search box. Messages that contain the word or name you specified appear with the search text highlighted in the results.

    For detailed information, please refer to the article under Find a message

    Best regards,

    Shyamal

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  4. Hal Hostetler MVP-Outlook 11,901 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-03-16T16:37:26+00:00

    The "Format Text" tab will only appear on new email messages or on Replies and Forwards when you click the "Popout" button to open the message in a new window, it does not appear on a reply/forward that is composed/edited in place in the Preview Pane.  Searching can be performed on an inline message with a few extra steps:

    1. Click the "Home" tab.
    2. Click the "Filter Email" button in the "Find" section to expand the list and click "More Filters".  This causes the "Search Tools" tab to appear.
    3. From here, you can do a number of different searches.

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