To conduct a basic search, just type the word or phrase you’re searching for the Search field at the right end of the Entourage toolbar. When you stop typing, Entourage starts searching, displays the Search bar, and fills in the list with the items it finds (see Figure 11-35). This search examines not only the sender, recipient, and subject of emails, but also the contents of the message. The same is true for contacts, calendar, notes, and tasks: all text is fair game.

Use the buttons on The Search bar to narrow or expand your search. For example, when searching for email you can search in the current folder, all folders on your computer, all messages, or in everything—which means everything in Entourage.

Figure 11-35. Use the omnipresent Search field in the Entourage toolbar to search for all the items containing your search term somewhere in their text. The more you type, the more Entourage whittles down your results. The Search bar provides buttons to focus on the current folder or other parts of your Entourage data repository. The Save button preserves this search so you can repeat it easily later (see Find Related Items) while the plus-sign button switches you into the advanced search mode for a more precisely targeted search.

Double-click an item in the list to open it, click column headings to sort the list, or use any of the toolbar buttons to perform the standard Entourage maneuvers.

Refine your search by clicking the plus-sign, “Show advanced search” button near the right end of the Search bar. Two more toolbars appear beneath the Search bar. Use the pop-up menu in the lower bar to choose which field to search in. Depending on the field you choose you can make more choices from pop-up menus or fill text into the search box (see Figure 11-36). To search on more than one criterion, click the “Add search criteria” plus-sign button at the right to summon another search field. Continue adding and filling out search fields until you’ve specified your search formula with sufficient exactitude. Finally, use the pop-up button just above to determine whether your results match all or any of the search criteria (that’s an AND or OR search for the logicians in the audience).

Figure 11-36. After performing a basic search, click the plus-sign button at the right end of the Search bar to summon the advanced search controls. You can include multiple criteria in your search by clicking the plus-sign button to the right of each search field then set the pop-up menu at the top to match all of the criteria or any of the criteria. As you manipulate these pop-up menus and fields, Entourage searches showing the results in the list below.

By using multiple search criteria you could find, for example, a message containing the words global warming, sent by your friend Erica within the last 90 days. Or all the messages in your folder containing the name Bootsy.

Entourage has another way of searching for related items—the Find Related Items command. It lets you find all email messages to or from an individual person in one fell swoop—a handy technique when there are hundreds or thousands of messages in your message list, and you’re trying to find the messages that constituted a particular correspondence.

To use this feature, open your address book. Click the name of a person listed, and then choose Contact → Find Related Items. Entourage searches for any messages sent to or received from that person. The results appear in a Search Results window, which you can save as a custom view, if you like.