Provide an option of performing partial word search and phrases without using Advanced options in Microsoft Outlook 2016
Provide an option of performing partial word search without using Advanced options in Microsoft Outlook 2016.
Currently you have to go through the following options to check the partial word search:
Click inside the search box in Outlook 2016.
Click on Search Tools > Advanced Find > Advanced tab.
Click on Field > Frequently-used fields > Subject.
Select Contains in Condition drop-down box.
In Value add your search string.
Click on Add to List.
You can also add the ability to search phrases.
Also, please add under “advance search” a “To” column which is permanent, I can add one now manually, but it disappears after I close the search window and i have manually add it again each time. This is a very important feature to me while conducting “Advanced Search”.

49 comments
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Anonymous commented
Confession: I haven't been able to invite groups to meetings for several years now simply because I simply can't find them due to my companies insistence on weird prefixes being on the front of group names and Microsoft's odd lack of substring finding.. Instead I have to create all meetings by trying to remember who's in each team.. It sucks. It's amazing we're in 2020 and outlook can't do this..
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Rob W. Lontech commented
Why would you take away our ability to search for substrings???
I used to be able to search for "phone" and the word "telephone" would be in the result set. SO IMPORTANT. Don't remove key functionality without providing a solution. That is a rule in Software development 101. -
Anonymous commented
The search tab. (Both normal search & advance search) in outlook 2016 has to search the partial words as well, similar to earlier version of outlook. This save lot of time to users also do not cause delay/errors to users.
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Michele commented
This is UNACCEPTABLE. Search in Outlook 2016 is absolutely unusable. Searching in shared folder is impossible, searching partial words is impossible. MS do something!
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Mori commented
I can't search by sender/subject OR search for part of a word or number sequence?! What is the POINT?!
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Lela commented
My company recently migrated all its users' emails to Outlook 2016 from Outlook 2013 and this useless "updated" search feature has shot my team in the foot. Advanced Find does not work and should not be the "solution." I should be able to search "oneword" and find results like "typeoneword."
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Lela commented
Yes, this is absolutely infuriating and honestly completely useless. The "Advanced Find" does not solve the problem. If I need to search for anything containing "234" the search and advanced find features will only pull up results beginning with "234." I am looking for results where "234" is used anywhere in the email, whether it's 1234, abc1234, 000234, etc. This is critical for my job, and the disability would be laughable if it weren't so crippling. Microsoft Outlook is a standard among many business, requiring people to use it. Get it together.
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hgitz Guj commented
I support the OP.
Please change the search to allow searching for word fragments without the need for advanced search.
One example:
It is not possible to find all mails that contain "berries" (e.g. strawberry, raspberry, ...) by searching for "berry" or "*berry".Allow wildcard search or RegEx search.
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Anonymous commented
Pls insert alphabet into outlook so when i am searching for a particular name i can point out the mouse pointer on the fist letter and come to that point exactly. Like i am looking for Mike's e-mails i will point out the letter M and Outlook will point out e-mails starting with a letter M. Something that exist in smartphones... in my practice i always needed it. i believe if one looks for a particular e-mails such an application will make the searching process easier and quicker.
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Anonymous commented
please add under "advance search" a "To" column which is permanent, I can add one now manually, but it disappears after I close the search window and i have manually add it again each time. This is a very important feature to me while conducting "Advanced Search".
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Anonymous commented
Absolute madness, I get over 500 emails a day and need to filter (Not always knowing how to spell some peoples names), removal of the partial filter is pure stupidity from Microsoft. Sort it out please......
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Tami commented
I ditto this suggestion!!! It's a backward move to remove the true partial search option. I know there are MANY people out there, like me, who do searches all day long. (I am, for example, many times searching to pull up all emails that pertain to one specific client. Sometimes the client name is in the subject line or body of the email, and sometimes it's not. Sometimes the client name is in the To/From field, and sometimes it's not. (and sometimes clients have abbreviated email addresses) It's crucial to be able to use a partial word/string for searching.
1) It's not efficient to have to search "exact" each time, and
2) it's definitely not efficient to have to take the extra time to go to "advanced" every time! -
Jen Frasier commented
When performing an Advanced Find, right-clicking at the top of the list gives the View Settings option, but the options don't have any effect on the displayed search results. Changing the listed columns will not alter the messages displayed. Changing the font/size will update the message subject but not the sender, and as soon as I close the Advanced Find window the changes are lost. There needs to be a way to have Advanced View Settings applied and saved to the Advanced Find; otherwise those options need to be removed from the Advanced Find window. Allowing the user to select and change the view settings, then having them not take effect is a defect that needs to be addressed.
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Jasper van Zuijlen commented
Dear anonymous user: from:abc will only search abc* in the from field and not *abc*, that is what this whole topic is about. Especially when not searching the from field but subject or message body, partial searches are very useful. Example using the from search you mentioned: from:reply will not give you any results containing noreply@example.com
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Anonymous commented
If you search using from:abc without the "quotes" it will do the partial search for you. When the quotes are in place i means you are only looking for "abc" in particular but if you remove the quotes the partial search still works.
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AbhayKumarSomani commented
The existing partial search option should at least be added while searching in some fields. For example, in 2013, I could do a search like 'from:"abc"' and this would list all emails whose senders start with "abc", but this basic feature is missing in Office 365 Pro Plus. I was stunned at this. What made Microsoft think that this is not a useful feature in emails??
Please bring this feature back. -
Anonymous commented
Restore partial search functionality in Outlook 2016 (was included in 2013) without having to use advanced find.
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Renie commented
Searching the forums is almost impossible. Please provide a better search engine for searching the forum. Please allow for the "AND" search and the "PHRASE" search. When you are searching the forum for "Track Changes" and formatting and you get 430 hits because it finds everything with any form of the work "track" and "change" and "format" pretty much makes the search useless.
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Volker Brand commented
How and when will this idea be integrated in outlook? In owa you can work with this feature without problems. Please Micrsoft tell us when this feature is available for Outlook! If this feature will not be available at all please tell us why!
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Stupid commented
What a fuckup!