Searching O365 mailbox for all messages which don't contain [ in subject line

Darren Rose 281 Reputation points
2023-01-26T15:32:57.44+00:00

Trying to use PowerShell to search O365 mailbox to get all messages where subject line doesn't contain specific string, specifically a square bracket [

The command below works fine in principal to find all messages where subject contains a specific word, but can't get it to work to find all messages where subject DOES NOT contain a specific word (or in this case character [)

Search-Mailbox -Identity "fred@email.com" -SearchQuery 'Subject:"*" -[' -EstimateResultOnly

The eventual aim is to scan a mailbox to remove all content other than messages which contain square brackets in the subject line, so will use -DeleteContent switch or similar, for now just using -EstimateResultOnly or -LogOnly -LogLevel Full and -TargetFolder -TargetMailbox to see a list of what it finds

What am I missing - all comments appreciated.

Thanks

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  1. Jame Xu-MSFT 4,166 Reputation points
    2023-01-27T08:54:30.5+00:00

    Hi @Darren Rose ,

    Some special characters aren't included in the search index and therefore aren't searchable.

    Refer to: Keyword queries and search conditions for eDiscovery

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    I tested in my environment and also could not match the special characters.

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  2. Amit Singh 4,866 Reputation points
    2023-01-27T06:36:31.2266667+00:00

    Check this similar thread for help - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66126319/search-string-substitute-variable-in-a-powershell-command


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  3. Darren Rose 281 Reputation points
    2023-01-27T09:48:00.3666667+00:00

    Thanks for your reply - and for testing for me.

    That is really annoying then. Any thought on another way I can achieve this? is there a way in outlook or on outlook.com (owa) instead that I can search for all emails which DON'T contain square brackets [ or ] in the subject line?

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  4. Jame Xu-MSFT 4,166 Reputation points
    2023-01-31T06:58:13.28+00:00

    Hi @Darren Rose ,

    Sorry, "[" or "]" is also not available as searchable items in outlook, so there is no way to filter the emails you need, if your "[]" contains content, it is possible to search with the content.


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