Attachment Searches

An attachment search allows you to apply search criteria to attachments found in archived messages. For O365 environments, you can also perform an attachment search on modern attachments. You can customize the display of the results to make it easier to correlate data.

You can also perform a search for message(s) using advanced search tools—see Advanced Search Scenarios.

How to Search for Attachments

  • In the Folder view, select the archive stores and custodians to filter.
  • In the Document view, click Search > Messages.
  • The Search dialog box displays. If you are logged in as an End user, the Audit and Tags tabs are not available.
  • Click Clear if there was a previous search.
  • Select the Attachment tab and enter criteria in any of the fields.
    • Filename matches: Enter specific words contained in the filename.
    • File size range: Enter the range for file size.
    • Body Contains: In this field, linguistic analysis is performed on your query—see About Natural Language Processing.
    • Phrase Match: Enter the sequence of words to search. This option is not case sensitive. It is useful when you have a clear idea of the results you are looking for, yet still want to see possible word forms. There may be stop words between the search words.
    • Example: Searching for employment contract will produce the following:

      'Employment Contract for 2019'. Instances such as 'my colleague's employment' and 'contracts for employment' would not appear in results because the word sequence is reversed—see About Natural Language Processing.

    • Proximity Search: Lets you specify whether a word is within proximity to another word.
    • Automatically escape reserved index characters (SOLR): Certain characters and words are reserved for indexing. By default, this option is selected so you can search for the following: \ + - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ AND OR NOT
  • When you are done, click Search.
  • A list of attachments is displayed in the Document view.
  • If needed, run another search. Add criteria to the Audit, Attachment, or Tags tabs to narrow the search even more.
  • TIP
    If you want your current search criteria to be carried over into Advanced Search, avoid clearing the criteria after running a search. The criteria may be organized differently in Advanced Search than how you originally entered it.