How do I search for a email, for attachments, or for text

Yahoo! Mail’s Search can find almost anything in your entire account – messages, attachments, names, words, and photos. The Search box is in the upper-left part of the page, to the right of the "New" button.



The Search box is in the upper-left part of the page, below the Check Mail and New buttons.


Click inside the Search box, and type what you're looking for – a name, a word in a message or attachment, “multiple words” (put them in quotes for an exact phrase), or the first letters of the name or word. If you’re looking for a photo, search for the person who sent it to you or for a word you remember from the email or subject. There’s a complete list of search shortcuts at the end of this help page.

You can also use the minus sign (“-”) to remove specific messages from your search results. For example:

• To find messages that mention a person but aren’t from that person, type: person -from:person


• To find messages containing specific text, but not from a specific user, type: text -from:user


• To find messages containing specific text that do not contain other specific text, type: text -otherText

You can also use multiple shortcuts to narrow your search results. For example:

• To search for a JPEG file attachment sent by a specific user, type: attachmenttype:jpg from:specificUser


• To find a message containing the word “yellow’ with an MPEG movie attached, type: yellow attachmenttype:mpeg

Note: Yahoo! Mail’s Search will only return items where the text you’re looking for is at the beginning of a complete word. For example, if you search for “lyn”, it will return messages that contain “lynn”, “lynette”, and “lynda”, but it will not return messages that contain “carolynn”, “madelynn”, or “royalyn”. When searching for multiple words, searching for “first second” will return all messages containing “first second” in that exact order but searching for “irst second” will not.

After you type your search text, click Mail Search or press the Enter key. Use the search shortcutsto find what you want even more quickly!

A listing all the messages containing the text you’re looking for appears, including those where the text is within an attached file. You’ll see the sender (From), the Subject, the Date, and the Location (folder). Underneath is the text surrounding your word or phrase. If the text is within either the message text or an attached file, the text you looked for appears in bold.

To the left, under "Refine Results", are quick links to cross-referenced places in your account where your search term pops up, such as all results from a specific "Sender" or with a specific kind of "Attachment".

If the message contains attachments, you can hold your pointer over the paperclip icon to see the name and type of what’s attached without having to open the message. To scan results for photos or attachments, click either Photo View or Attachment View above the search results. When you switch between these views, your search terms and any refinements are kept.

Search Shortcuts

Here are some tricks for finding exactly what you want. Don’t put a space after the colon (“:”)!

Header Shortcuts

Shortcut	Description	Examples
To:, Cc:, Bcc:	Search your folders for a specific recipient. You can use a name, a fragment at the beginning of a name, or a full first and last name in quotes (if the mail was sent with the full name in the To: field). No space after the colon.	to:mary cc:ma bcc:“Mary Poppins”
From:	The From: shortcut can be used to search for a specific sender. You can use a name, a fragment at the beginning of a name, or a full name in quotes (if the mail was sent with the full name in the From: field). Use quotes for full names.	from:Mikki from:mi from:“Mikki Tucker”
Subject:	The Subject: shortcut can be used to search for messages containing specific text in the subject. Use quotes for multiple-word subjects.	subject:dinner subject:“favorite route”

Attachment Shortcuts

The attachment shortcuts can be used to search for properties of an attachment.

Shortcut	Description	Examples
attachment:	Search for text inside any text-based attachment (it can’t search for words in a picture).	attachment:reservation attachment:“great year”
attachmentname:	attachmentname: Search for messages containing attachments with the specified text in the filename.	attachmentname:reservation attachmentname:resume attachmentname:“final results”
attachmentcount:	Search for messages with a specified number of attachments. To find messages with more or less than a specific number of attachments, use the greater-than or less-than symbol.	attachmentcount:1 attachmentcount:>0 attachmentcount:<5
attachmenttype:	Search for messages containing a certain type of attachment (for example PDFs). Your choices are: .pdf file: pdf .doc or .rtf file: msword .xls, .xlsb, xlsm, .xlsx: excel .txt: text .bmp,.gif, .jpg, .png, tiff: image .bmp: bmp .jpg: jpeg .gif: gif .png: png .tif, .tiff: tiff .mpg, .mpeg (MPEG movie): mpeg	attachmenttype:pdf attachmenttype:msword attachmenttype:excel attachmenttype:text attachmenttype:image attachmenttype:jpeg
attachmentlanguages:	Search for attachments in a specific language. Your choices are:	Chinese: cn French: fr German: de Indian: in Japanese: jp Korean: kr Spanish: es