Robin Williams Cool Mac Apps. A guide to iLife '05, .Mac, and more.

You can search a specific account, an individual mailbox/folder, or all mailboxes/accounts at once. You can limit the search to the individual fields From, To, or Subject, or have it search the "Entire Message," which includes all the fields plus the message body.

To search a specific account or folder, single-click an account or folder in the Mailbox Sidebar, then click in the Search field. Type a search term in the Search field.

As you type, the search starts immediately. The more letters you type, the fewer results will match and will be displayed in the Viewer window.

As soon as you start to type, what we call the "search bar" appears directly under the toolbar, as shown below. Be sure to check this barit tells you exactly what was searched. It's not always what you requested! For instance, you might have selected a particular account, but Mail searched "All Mailboxes" instead, even though you see the name of your selection in the search bar. To limit the existing search to just the account you previously selected, click the account or mailbox name in the search bar.

To search multiple folders and mailboxes, Command-click items in the Mailbox Sidebar to search, then follow the process above.

To search all mailboxes, type something in the Search field. When the search bar appears, click "All Mailboxes."

The Viewer window shows the search results. The far-right column tells you which account a selected message is in.