Is there SERIOUSLY no way to search through email message text?

[-aggie-]

Maybe you should learn to articulate better.

How do you articulate "body of message" any better?

The only way to do this is jailbreak or go to your email in a web browser that allows you to not be forced to the mobile version (like Atomic Web, etc.).

 

[jason2811]

No joke, use the Spotlight search on the homescreen to search through your mail. It's 100000x better than the native Mail app search.

 

[baller1308]

Spotlight works great as jason2811 has mentioned.

 

[mattraehl]

It definitely searches the body of the mail when you select "All." I just got my iPhone yesterday so I'm new with the iPhone version of Mail but in iPad I've never had a problem searching email bodies.

I just tried it again now to make sure I wasn't going crazy. Logged into gmail online, picked a random email from May, chose a word in the email that wasn't in the subject or to/from, searched in the Mail app, go the results back near-instantly, results had the email I chose in addition to emails from 09, 08, etc.

 

[aristobrat]

Searching for "subscribed" using "All" finds all my MacRumors emails. The key is that the search is case-sensitive unfortunately. Update to a lowercase s and tell us what happens.

Searching in Mail for "subscribed" turns up nothing, even though I have an email from 11:54 PM last night that contains that work.

Searching in Spotlight, "subscribed" turns up an old email, but "subscribed" is in the Subject, but also fails to find the emails that contain "subscribed" in the body.

 

[-aggie-]

Searching in Mail for "subscribed" turns up nothing, even though I have an email from 11:54 PM last night that contains that work.

Searching in Spotlight, "subscribed" turns up an old email, but "subscribed" is in the Subject, but also fails to find the emails that contain "subscribed" in the body.

Unless this got added in 5, just ignore these posts saying you can do it.

 

[lordofthereef]

Is there a "search text" feature in any mobile browser? This is a serious question. I don't remember having it on Android either, though I haven't used anything later that 2.3.x

 

[bjb.butler]

Is there a "search text" feature in any mobile browser? This is a serious question. I don't remember having it on Android either, though I haven't used anything later that 2.3.x

I know for a fact that at the very least, HTC's android browser has an option to search the page.

So does the iPhone/iOS: when on a web page, scroll to the top bar and hit the search box. Enter the term you are looking for on the page, the scroll all the way to the bottom. It gives you you to find that word on the current page you're on.

 

[Phil A.]

Is there a "search text" feature in any mobile browser? This is a serious question. I don't remember having it on Android either, though I haven't used anything later that 2.3.x

It's available in iOS as mentioned already, and on my SGS 2 with the stock browser (menu / more / find on page)

 

[lordofthereef]

I know for a fact that at the very least, HTC's android browser has an option to search the page.

So does the iPhone/iOS: when on a web page, scroll to the top bar and hit the search box. Enter the term you are looking for on the page, the scroll all the way to the bottom. It gives you you to find that word on the current page you're on.

Well, I certainly can't find this on my browser. Maybe I am just being incredibly inept.

Mobile Safari, for me, has a place to type a URL and a google search. That's it. What am I missing.

 

[aristobrat]

Mobile Safari, for me, has a place to type a URL and a google search. That's it. What am I missing.

IMO, it's really not an intuitive feature.

Type what you're looking for in the Google box, and if you look at the bottom of the results that it returns, there should be an option to search the current web page.

 

[bjb.butler]

Well, I certainly can't find this on my browser. Maybe I am just being incredibly inept.

Mobile Safari, for me, has a place to type a URL and a google search. That's it. What am I missing.

Follow the directions exactly as I posted.
Hit the search box. Search for what you want to find ON THE CURRENT PAGE. Then scroll down in that search menu and you will see an option to find that on the page.

The Internet search box is used to search the page. It's really dumb the way it's implemented, but it is there.

 

[lordofthereef]

Follow the directions exactly as I posted.
Hit the search box. Search for what you want to find ON THE CURRENT PAGE. Then scroll down in that search menu and you will see an option to find that on the page.

The Internet search box is used to search the page. It's really dumb the way it's implemented, but it is there.

What search box? I don't see a search box.... I type in any word, and it takes me to [thatword].com

Example... I went to reefcentral.com and type the word "where" into the bar... it takes me to touch.where.com

 

[bjb.butler]

What search box? I don't see a search box.... I type in any word, and it takes me to [thatword].com

Example... I went to reefcentral.com and type the word "where" into the bar... it takes me to touch.where.com

Go to the Safari Internet Search Box in the top menu bar. The one that says Google/Yahoo!/Bing
In that search field, type the word you're looking for on the page you're currently looking at. For example, on this page, you could search for your name, lordofthereef. DON'T press the search button on the keyboard. you will see a suggested search term, and under it, it shouf say "On This Page". You can click that.

This is how you search on *any* webpage. If you're searching for common words, such as "dog", you will have to scroll to the very bottom of the suggested search terms in order to reveal the "On This Page" section.

 

[lordofthereef]

Go to the Safari Internet Search Box in the top menu bar. The one that says Google/Yahoo!/Bing
In that search field, type the word you're looking for on the page you're currently looking at. For example, on this page, you could search for your name, lordofthereef. DON'T press the search button on the keyboard. you will see a suggested search term, and under it, it shouf say "On This Page". You can click that.

This is how you search on *any* webpage. If you're searching for common words, such as "dog", you will have to scroll to the very bottom of the suggested search terms in order to reveal the "On This Page" section.

Thanks for your patience and I apologize for my complete ineptitude. I finally figured it out!

That said, it's nice to have the option, but implementation is terrible.

 

[mkrishnan]

Unless this got added in 5, just ignore these posts saying you can do it.

Full text searching -did- get added in iOS 5, but I don't find it reliable. I just did a trial, and it did find at least one email that had the keyword in full text (and not in from/to/subject) with the search All in Mail, but a large number of gmail messages with the target content even in matching case, which showed up quickly in safari gmail, did not show up at all.

The term was "Medicare" so I have tons of messages on the topic in my inbox, and the case is consistent.

Right now, I also use gmail in safari if I really need to find full text.

 

[mattraehl]

Unless this got added in 5, just ignore these posts saying you can do it.

Please stop this. It is a real feature wether you want to believe it or not. Proof attached.

To those having problems, if it is with Gmail, I believe the search only works in the context of the mailbox you are in. So if you are in your inbox, it will only search messages in your inbox. You have to go to "All Mail" to search on archived messages.

 

[BiggAW]

Full text searching -did- get added in iOS 5, but I don't find it reliable. I just did a trial, and it did find at least one email that had the keyword in full text (and not in from/to/subject) with the search All in Mail, but a large number of gmail messages with the target content even in matching case, which showed up quickly in safari gmail, did not show up at all.

The term was "Medicare" so I have tons of messages on the topic in my inbox, and the case is consistent.

Right now, I also use gmail in safari if I really need to find full text.

The search is totally broken in iOS5. I can't even search for a contact half the time. One of the things I miss about Android. Overall still very happy with the iPhone. If I actually made many phone calls, I would be pretty annoyed at this though. Most of the time I have a recent call or text I can use to call the person.

 

[bjb.butler]

Please stop this. It is a real feature wether you want to believe it or not. Proof attached.

To those having problems, if it is with Gmail, I believe the search only works in the context of the mailbox you are in. So if you are in your inbox, it will only search messages in your inbox. You have to go to "All Mail" to search on archived messages.

I'm using gmail, and it doesn't work. Period.

It's extremely broken, and you should be thankful that yours works.

I just use the gmail app if I need to search the body of messages.

 

[BiggAW]

My whole system search is working perfectly right now, but it wasn't working at all the other day. I'm wondering if it's because I rebooted within the last couple of days...

 

[PNutts]

Doesn't work for me. I think All means that it will search the From, To and Subject fields. (i.e. "all of them").

Idk what those previous posters are talking about; Searching "All" only searches "To", "From", and "Subject".

It's been like that way for me since I've had an iPhone 3G. It definitely doesn't search the message body of emails.

I've tested using Apple's Gmail integration and Gmail thru Exchange.

Yeah, doesn't search the body of any of my emails....gmail, me.com and msn.

It depends on your e-mail provider. Yahoo, like TSA, searches bodies.

http://www.macworld.com/article/163008/2011/10/up_close_with_ios_5_mails_changes.html

 

[mkrishnan]

The search is totally broken in iOS5. I can't even search for a contact half the time. One of the things I miss about Android. Overall still very happy with the iPhone. If I actually made many phone calls, I would be pretty annoyed at this though. Most of the time I have a recent call or text I can use to call the person.

I don't have that kind of problem -- full body text searching does not seem to work reliably for me, but as far as I can tell, all other aspects of searching seem to be working normally.

(As far as the "it depends on your e-mail provider", both the messages that were found in my example and the messages that were not found were on the same Google account.)

I would imagine that Google has great search on Android, although I haven't played with it. On Macs Spotlight is awesome -- I hope they can find a way to make it work that well on my phone. And it needs to work with Gmail -- I have years of e-mail there now and I don't want to switch.

 

[rsmith83]

Just a thought, but is this something related to POP3 versus IMAP accounts? I use IMAP for my personal domain name email accounts because I want the message to stay on the server. Maybe the OS only searches messages that are considered downloaded to the handset? I haven't tested it so I'm not sure.

 

[mattraehl]

Just a thought, but is this something related to POP3 versus IMAP accounts? I use IMAP for my personal domain name email accounts because I want the message to stay on the server. Maybe the OS only searches messages that are considered downloaded to the handset? I haven't tested it so I'm not sure.

I use IMAP and when I was testing this I compared searches on gmail.com with OS X Mail app and iOS Mail app, did five or six searches in "All Mail" and I got the same results each time, including very old emails that could not possibly be on my phone.

On iOS it initially searches only the locally cached messages and then offers to continue searching on the server. The IMAP protocol supports server-side searching, so basically the iOS Mail client sends a search request to the GMail IMAP server, interprets the results it recieves, and displays them. If there is a problem it could be with how the iOS Mail client is requesting the search or interpreting the results, or the GMail IMAP server not responding to the search request correctly.

I wonder if the people having problems with GMail body searches are using MS Exchange instead of IMAP.

 

[mkrishnan]

I wonder if the people having problems with GMail body searches are using MS Exchange instead of IMAP.

Mine is set up as IMAP using the "GMail" default option that one gets one when first selects "add an account." (FWIW, that also doesn't explain why iOS itself gives a different set of search results from the "Spotlight" screen than it does from the Mail app.)