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explicit word search

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  • Last reply by sfhowes

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I'd like to search for a word in my emails. Example: 'e-bike', but the search seems to return everything with bike, biking, bikes, etc. How can I make it work the way it should work?

I'd like to search for a word in my emails. Example: 'e-bike', but the search seems to return everything with bike, biking, bikes, etc. How can I make it work the way it should work?

Chosen solution

If you're using Global Search (Ctrl+K), it performs a 'faceted' search, so that a query such as 'e-bike' generates results for related terms such as biking, bikes etc. Classic Search (Ctrl+Shift+F) works per account, but in the normal way. The Quick Filter Bar (Ctrl+Shift+K) will search a folder if you type the word in the box, then click the Body button.

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=3048367

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Chosen Solution

If you're using Global Search (Ctrl+K), it performs a 'faceted' search, so that a query such as 'e-bike' generates results for related terms such as biking, bikes etc. Classic Search (Ctrl+Shift+F) works per account, but in the normal way. The Quick Filter Bar (Ctrl+Shift+K) will search a folder if you type the word in the box, then click the Body button.

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=3048367

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Thanks. I've been around a while and that's the 1st time I've heard of a faceted search. To clarify, "Classic Search (Ctrl+Shift+F) works per account, but in the normal way", is also a faceted search. Quick filter is the 'normal' search. IMHO faceted search should not be the default, a plain text search (maybe + wild cards) should be the default search.

The help page, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/global-search, does not describe the global search as well as you did. It makes no mention of including similar items in the results, or pointing out that quick filter uses a different search algorithm.

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I'm not sure that Classic Search is faceted, although it might appear so if you were to set the filter as Body + contains instead of Body + is.

There's a full description of the various methods here:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Search_-_Thunderbird