Which search mode?

Global search? Quickfilter bar? Traditional ctrl+shift+f?

Global search results can be shown in a more conventional view by selecting "show email as list" and in this view you can enable an attachments column.

Another approach might be to set up a Saved Search to collect together messages with attachments.

File|New|Saved Search

I use the function "search message" in the main page (advanced features) to check in all folders and subfolders. I actually see the emails as a list, but there is no column dedicated to the attachment symbol. please check the attached picture.

Using the quick filter it works but on a single folder only... thanks again for your time

Well, as far as I can see, that search won't look through all your accounts; just the subfolders of the selected account or folder.

However, where you have selected "From" as a search rule, you can set it to

Attachment Status|Is|Has attachments

It is restrictive in that if you want to look for messages from someone and with attachments, you can only search for one person. It doesn't let you set up a filter such as

(is from A OR is from B) AND has attachments

If you need to search multiple accounts then I'd still consider the Saved Search, where again you can use the "Attachment status" as one of your rules, and select which folders to search.

Alternatively, use the global search, use "Show email as list", use the Quickfilter bar to show only messages with attachments.

Saved Search is good for a search activity you expect to do often. The global search/quickfilter combination is OK for ad-hoc single usage.

I wrote about filtaquilla previously, but on checking I see it doesn't permit regular expressions on sender addresses. :-(

hi Zenos, first of all thanks for your time!

In your attached picture I don’t recognize a mac system, Are you using a pc?

Using the last update of Thunderbird for Mac, In the “search message” the selection “has attachment” disappeared from the menu, as you can see in the attached screenshot. Actually, I’m now realizing that it works with the “saved search”, but it is not so handly to create it all the times, when you need different parameters (different senders, etc…)

The reason why I opened this question, is because in the past the emails with attachments were already ‘labelled’ in the first “search message” results…

Anyway, I’m working on a single account (the only one)

Thanks again!

I'm running on Linux here.

I have just started Thunderbird in its Safe Mode, and I still get the Attachment Status option in the ctrl+shift+f search and the Saved Search dialogues, ruling out this option being shown here via an add-on. So this looks like one of those unexpected differences between the Mac version and the version I have here. I may be able to check in Windows too.

The "Global Search"/"show email as list"/"quickfilter bar|unread" route looks like the remaining option open to you that can deliver results where you can see an attachment indicator.

Just checked in Windows. The "Attachment Status" option is there too.

How very odd that this specific feature is not present in the Mac version.

'Attachment Status' and some other criteria are only available if 'Run search on server' is not selected.

hi guys, thanks to both of you for the great help! thanks again Giuseppe