How to Use Yahoo! Mail Search Operators

Yahoo! Mail is used by millions of people, but what is largely unknown is how to use search operators to search your email more quickly.

What is a search operator?

A search operator command you use when performing your search. Search engines have been using these ever since they came into existence.

For example, if you go to search.yahoo.com and search for the term computer, you will see Wikipedia results. If you did not want to see Wikipedia results, you type in your search as computer -wikipedia. The minus sign followed by the word means "don't show this".

Using mail search operators in Yahoo! Mail

This is an undocumented feature of Y! Mail, but you can use these right now.

Command: folder

Use this when you want to search a specific folder.

Example: Type (without quotes) "folder:Sent search-term-here". This will search only the Sent folder for search-term-here. Replace search-term-here with whatever you want to search for.

Command: from

Use this when you want to find emails from a specific person.

Example: Type (without quotes) "from: someone". This will search all mail for someone. Change someone to the person you want to view mail from. Someone can be a full email address, partial or just a name.

Command: subject

Use this when you want to find emails containing a specific word in the subject line.

Example: Type (without quotes) "subject: search-term-here". This will search all mail for emails that contain search-term-here in the subject line. Change search-term-here to whatever you want to search for.

Command: to

Use this when you want to find emails you sent to a specific recipient.

Example: Type (without quotes) "to: someone@example.com". This will search all mail for emails that were sent to someone@example.com. Change someone@example.com to whatever individual you want to search for that you sent mail to. If you do not know the entire email address, that's OK, you can enter a partial name such as someone.

Can you combine search operators?

Yes. If you performed a search like this:

to:someone folder:Sent

...this would search the Sent folder for everything address to someone. You can replace someone with whatever recipient you're searching for.

Why use Y! Mail search operators?

If you learn how to use Y! Mail search operators, you'll quickly discover you can perform searches faster. With a traditional search you have to "drill down", so to speak, before you find the mails you were looking for. Using mail search operators will in most instances find exactly what you were looking for with just one search term and one click.