Search

Last updated: March 29, 2026

Find any email across all your connected accounts with full-text search and powerful filters.

Searching Your Email

InflowMail lets you search across all connected accounts from a single search bar. Whether the email came from your Gmail, Outlook, or IMAP account, you can find it in one place.

Search works by matching your query against email subjects, snippet previews, and body text. Results are ranked by relevance, with the most recent and best-matching emails appearing first.

How it works: InflowMail uses PostgreSQL full-text search with ranked results. Your emails are indexed automatically as they sync, so new emails are searchable within moments of arriving.

Search Filters

Narrow your search results using any combination of the following filters:

Filter Description Example
Sender Filter by the sender's email address [email protected]
Date range Filter by received date (from and/or to) Jan 1 – Mar 31
Has attachments Show only emails with file attachments Yes / No
Category Filter by AI-assigned category primary, social, promotions
Read / Unread Filter by whether the email has been read Unread only
Starred Show only starred or flagged emails Starred only
Account Limit search to a specific connected account Work Gmail
Folder Search within a specific folder INBOX, SENT, DRAFTS
Provider Filter by email provider type gmail, outlook

Full-Text Search

When you type a query in the search bar, InflowMail searches across multiple fields to find the best matches.

What Gets Searched

Subject line: The email's subject is always searched and weighted highly in relevance ranking.

Snippet / Preview: The short preview text shown in your inbox list is included in the search index.

Body text: The full text content of the email body is searchable, so you can find emails even when the subject line does not contain your search term.

Sender name and address: You can search by the sender's display name or email address to find all emails from a specific person.

Relevance Ranking

Search results are ranked by relevance, not just date. InflowMail considers how well your query matches the email content, with subject-line matches ranked higher than body matches. Within results of similar relevance, more recent emails appear first.

Highlighted Matches

When results are returned, the matching terms are highlighted in the subject, snippet, and body fragments so you can quickly see why each email matched your query.

Advanced Filtering

You can combine a text query with any number of filters to narrow your results precisely.

Combining Filters

All filters work together as an AND condition. For example, searching for "invoice" with the sender filter set to "[email protected]" and the date range set to "last month" will return only emails that match all three criteria.

Example: Find unread invoices

Type "invoice" in the search bar, then set Read/Unread to "Unread" and Has Attachments to "Yes". This shows unread emails mentioning "invoice" that include file attachments.

Example: Search a specific account

Select your work account from the Account filter, then search for "project update". Only emails from that account will appear in the results.

Example: Browse sent emails by date

Set the Folder filter to "SENT" and choose a date range. You can optionally add a search term to further narrow the results.

Sorting

By default, results are sorted by received date (newest first). When you enter a text query, results are sorted by relevance instead, so the best matches appear at the top. You can switch between date and relevance sorting at any time.

Search Tips

Be specific: Searching for "Q4 budget report" will give better results than just "report". The more distinctive your query, the more relevant the results.

Use filters to narrow down: If you are looking for a specific email but cannot remember the exact words, try combining a rough search term with a sender or date range filter.

Search by sender: If you know who sent the email, using the sender filter is often faster than searching by keywords. You can type a partial email address.

Check other folders: By default, search looks in all folders. If you sent the email, set the folder filter to "SENT" to find it more quickly.

Starred emails: Use the starred filter to quickly find emails you have previously flagged as important, without needing to remember any keywords.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I search emails from all accounts at once?

Yes. By default, search covers all connected accounts. Your results will include matching emails from Gmail, Microsoft 365, and IMAP accounts together. You can narrow to a specific account using the Account filter if needed.

How quickly are new emails searchable?

Emails become searchable as soon as they are synced to InflowMail. There is no separate indexing delay — the search runs directly against your synced email database, so new emails are available in search results within moments of arriving.

Is there a limit on how many results are returned?

Search results are paginated, showing 50 results per page by default. You can navigate through pages to see more results. The total number of matching emails is displayed at the top of the results so you know how many were found.

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