# Recommend me an Outlook search tool/add-on **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 2, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-outlook-search-tool-add-on/538052 "2010-05-02T18:28:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-outlook-search-tool-add-on/538052/1 "2010-05-02T18:28:32Z")
Friday at work I pissed away nearly an hour looking for an email I know I had at least three copies of in Outlook. And I still didn’t find it. :mad: This is not the first time I’ve found Outlook’s search feature less than adequate. As in intercoursingly **USELESS!** Gee, thanks, Outlook. Oh, and when I want to search emails by date I totally want the only choices to be today, yesterday, this week, last week, this month and last month. Because I am not an AARP-card aged multiply degreed professional with over 20 years experience in computing. I am in fact a five year old without the education to know the names of all the months of the year or how a calendar works. :rolleyes: x 2007 I’d like to replace Outlook, but it’s my work computer and that would be a career limiting move. ☹ Can any Dopers recommend a supplementary search tool for Outlook? Something like the search tool in Thunderbird, or something like grep, or something that just works? A stack of punched cards would be preferable, fer Torvalds’ sake! ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-outlook-search-tool-add-on/538052/2 "2010-05-02T18:33:50Z")
I recommend Windows Search 4.0, although I think it has to be supported at the enterprise level. It’s running on my office system and it can search my Outlook mailbox instantly. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-outlook-search-tool-add-on/538052/3 "2010-05-02T19:36:47Z")
I used to use Google Desktop search, and it was way better (and faster) than Outlook search, but if you want professional grade, [xobni.com](http://xobni.com) is the gold standard. ---
**Author:** ![KevinJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/919ad9/32.png) [@KevinJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KevinJo)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-outlook-search-tool-add-on/538052/4 "2010-05-08T21:07:51Z")
back in the good old days I used a tool called Lookout. But since its development stopped and was bought by Microsoft, and thereby became a part of Outlook, it’s not much of an alternative nor improvement. Now, however, I’m using the quite similar named [Lookeen](http://www.lookeen.net). It’s as easy to use as the ‘normal’ search but yet much more accurate and powerful. I’m using several Outlook profiles and pst-files. With this tool I can simply add all the pst-files I want to be indexed and thus have acces to all my mails and Outlook data. First we used it at work, where I learned of Lookeen in the first place. Now I’m even using it at home. It’s not free though, but soon very valuable 🙂 Just give it a try… Kevin ---
**Author:** ![Bbusyb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bbusyb/32/4580_2.png) [@Bbusyb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bbusyb)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-an-outlook-search-tool-add-on/538052/5 "2010-05-09T01:34:59Z")
I’ll second the recommendation for [Xobni](http://www.xobni.com) plug-in for Outlook. The best part is that while the pro version adds a lot of additional useful features, the basic version which searches you mail is free and is very effective. I currently have Xobni on all the machines I have running outlook (8 or so) and on half of them actually paid for the Xobni Pro as I found the additional Features well worth the price. I’ll suggest downloading and installing the free version, as I’ve found it to be very intuitive to use and very very useful.