How to search ONLY Outlook Inbox

Question

Greetings!

When using the Outlook version with Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus, I would prefer that when I search within the Inbox, that all matching items are from the Inbox ONLY.  The actual behavior is that it searches the "Current Mailbox".  I have changed the default setting in Options to be "Current Folder", which works for every other folder EXCEPT the Inbox.  Every Internet search points to that setting, but as others have noted, it doesn't work in the most recent versions of Outlook.

To be clear, my use case is to right-click on an email and select "Find Related", then click either the "Messages in Conversation" or "Messages from Sender" option.  Either option returns results for the "Current Mailbox".

Has anyone found a way to set "Current Folder" to work as the default for the Inbox?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi JeffRussell37,

Thank you for the posting in our forum community.

Regarding your description, currently, there is no way to set "Current Folder" to work as the default for the Inbox.

For searching only Inbox email item, if we have set up default setting in Options to be "Current Folder", we can search email message of Inbox folder with help of selecting Inbox folder > click on Search bar > either we can search with “From” (sender name) or “Subject” (subject line of email message”.

If we have selected “Current folder” option, we can only get search result from that current folder only and we cannot get other folder search result with in Inbox.

Also, if we want another folders result within Inbox, we can get message conversation within Inbox folder.

For that, kindly select “Show as Conversation” option under “View” option in Outlook.

Here is the screenshot for the reference:

On the other hand, if the above information cannot meet your requirement regarding search feature in Outlook, for building up such kind of feature in Outlook, kindly give your feedback and also share your experience about this product feature via our UserVoice service: https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/322590-outlook-2016-for-windows. Because, our dedicated engineers are keeping monitoring customers’ vote, feedback and experience here in our UserVoice service, some features would be added into the product based on customers’ feedback, vote and experience in the future, your good and interesting ideas will be very helpful for them to improve the product.

I'm highly appreciating your cooperation in our Microsoft Community.

Regards,

Darpan

Answer 2

Thank you for your response.  You indicated that there was no way to set "Current Folder" as the default for the Inbox.  The other process you mentioned, though pretty well described, does not satisfy what I am looking to do, as I already have a quicker way of achieving the same thing.