using $search and $filter parameters for messages endpoint

Question

As per Graph Email API message docs $search and $filter parameters cannot be used together while querying message collections.

$filter doesn't support querying to, cc, bcc, and $search doesn't support in, unread, flag properties. Essentially this there is no fully-covered search of message collection endpoint. I have couple of questions related to this:

1. Why neither of those parameters don't allow searching per properties that are a frequent use case for messages? Do you plan on extending feature support for one or another?
2. Do you have any advises on some solution that could fully cover message search? Example here is a query that would search for messages that has both to and unread defined.

Answer 1

The Microsoft Graph API’s $search and $filter parameters have different functionalities and are designed to work on different properties of the message collections.

The $search parameter is used to restrict the results of a request to match a search criterion. It can search messages based on a value in specific message properties such as from, subject, body, bcc, cc, and attachment. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/search-query-parameter?tabs=http

On the other hand, the $filter parameter is used to retrieve a subset of a collection. It evaluates an expression for each resource in the collection, and only items where the expression evaluates to true are included in the response. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/search-query-parameter?tabs=http

This is by design. However, you provide your feedback here: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/ebe2edae-97d1-ec11-a7b5-0022481f3c80