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I want to create search folders that search for emails that have a category assigned, for example. And for every email that has that category found, I want to show the whole conversation in the search folder's view. Basically, I want to be able to search for something within a conversation instead of within an email.

Any ideas?

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Well, if I have a set of emails that outlook considers a "conversation", it usually starts with an email from or to me, then me and various other people reply back and forth. If I assign a category to one of those emails, I would like the search folder to show that whole conversation. If I search on that category, it filters out the rest of the emails in that conversation. I don't think I can do this in Outlook without 3rd party software, but maybe I can and haven't figured it out. I'll have to look into Xobni and Lookeen. – Mafu Josh Aug 29 '09 at 14:36
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4 Answers

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Well as you already noticed, there are search tools available which can help you with your problem, I also prefer lookeen, which is very good in displaying conversations and of course you don't need to create Search Folders, which by the way is a waste of time, when you have a good search tool.

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I want search folders, or some other flavor of saved search criteria, because repeatedly re-entering the same search criteria everyday is a waste of time for me when with a search folder all I have to do is click on it. – Mafu Josh Apr 7 '10 at 15:37
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up vote 1 down vote

I use Xobni for this purpose.

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Xobni looks like a nice tool, and it does seem to be able to search for conversation the way I want to. But Xobni does not seem to be able to filter on categories and some other things too, which I would need. And Xobni does not seem to have any thing similar to search folders, which is a big convenience for me. In the end, it isn't solving my problem. Thanks anyways. – Mafu Josh Apr 7 '10 at 15:40
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Right click on Search Folders and select New Search Folder.... In the New Search Folder window scroll down to select Categorized mail then click the Choose button to select the category you want to search (or multiple categories).

Then all you have to do is to customize current view in the new created search folder - right click on the header and select "Conversation" (or go to View | Current View | Conversation)

Let us know if this is what you needed.

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The problem with this is I want the whole conversation to show up, even if only 1 email matched the search criteria. – Mafu Josh Apr 6 '10 at 17:07
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up vote 0 down vote accepted

Well, although there doesn't seem to be a way to do this in 2007, 2010 does seem to support this, and it doesn't have to be a search folder. Conversation Settings includes a "Show Messages from other folders" option that is wonderful.

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Show as Conversations is not an option in Search Folders unfortunately. – EdenMachine Nov 4 '11 at 14:39
It is there for me, in Outlook 2010. – Mafu Josh Nov 6 '11 at 3:58
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