Open Bug 131438 Opened 22 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Can't search all local+server folders/accounts at once

Categories

(MailNews Core :: Search, enhancement)

enhancement

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: jquinn, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: [Saved Search Folder(Virtual Folder) is an alternative])

There is no "common root" so that you could search for a message on
local+server, or several servers, at once. When I have to search in the first
place is exactly when I have no idea where a message is! I want an "search for
messages in: all" option.
Severity: minor → enhancement
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
*** Bug 144722 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 146939 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Summary: Can't search local+server folders at once → Can't search all local+server folders/accounts at once
*** Bug 170977 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Ok, this is a crazy request, but could this be expanded so that this common root
so that it can hold saved searches?  What I mean is this.  I have a few
different accounts and all of them get spam/real email.  I'd like a common area
where I can read email rather than having to go to each account seperately.  In
the root I'd save a search for new email.  When I get email, I just refresh the
search and read the new email.

Ok, this is just an idea.  I'm not expecting this to become reality any time
soon.  BUT, coming back to the original request, I do believe a common root from
which one can search through all the accounts at once is needed.
mass re-assign.
Assignee: naving → sspitzer
we need a "all folders" (as the "choose this folder" part in the tree pop-up) in
the choice in the root tree view (after "Search for messages in").
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
I can't believe this still hasn't been done.  Please make this happen!
This RFE bug is badly messed up, I think, because it keeps trying to change its
stripes:

Original Title and Description: He seems to includes searching the SERVERS
without downloading all of the messages?? Nearly impossible, I think. (one way
for pop, another way for imap....)

Duey in #4: A completely different thing, he wants all the accounts to receive
email into a common inbox. (Subsequent to this, I think he doesn't request ANY
changes to search logic.) BTW, for Duey, I have a workaround: In all of your
accounts, apply filters (matching all incoming mail) to move all incoming "ggod"
mail to one common folder, all incoming "bad" mail to another... and proceed
from there.

LOL in #6: Appears to desire all folders within an Account (Inbox + Drafts +
Templates + Sent + Junk + Trash + any user-created folders), WITHOUT Search of
Multiple Accounts.

BTW, you can already do this with the FIRST account.. just accept the account
name, with search subfolders checked, and DON'T click it to select a folder. But
this is a UI disaster: If you go to another account, you're forced to choose a
folder, and if you click on the first account, showing the folders, you are also
forced to choose a folder (you can't go back).  

Citrus538 in #7: **** off that "it" isn't done, but I can't tell which "it" he
wants.

This is so confused that I think it should be closed as a duplicate of a new
bug, defined as follows:

(1) In the "Search Messages" Panel, provide an entry "All Accounts" in the
pull-down list of accounts provided as choices for 'Search for messages in:'
If selected, this will cause the search to include all folders and subfolders in
all accounts, including news accounts.

(2) When selected via click, any choice of Account or Folder will cause the
search to proceed. In the case of clicking on an Account, all subfolders of the
 Account will be included (the setting of the 'Search Subfolders' checkbox will
be ignored, because Accounts can't contain messages). In the case of selecting a
 Folder or Subfolder, the setting of the 'Search Subfolders' check box will
determine whether child folders (if any) of the selected folder will be included
in the search.
 
(3) When a folder has been selected, the Up Arrow will present the list of
choices in its parent list (as it does now). However, the items in this list
will now be made selectable.

For example, if you have chosen the inbox of Account #1, you can press the up
arrow and see the list of accounts. But you are unable to choose one of these
accounts as the root target of your search. And, if the 'Inbox' of Account #2
contains subfolders, you can't select the entire Inbox with subfolders... you
most go into the subfolder list and choose one specific folder, or you must
close the search panel and start over again.

Does this sound right? Not being a TB user, I don't know if TB shares this
problem. For me, the problem seems to be almost all GUI, with just a tiny bit of
search back-end work to actually do 'all accounts'. 
Does this bug belong to "core" product, or should we have separate bugs for
Suite and Thunderbird?
See also bug 285198.
This (search in more than one account at the same time) have to be extended to
the saved Virtual folders. There is a nice system in there to do that, but it
does not work.

In the properties of a virtual folder you can choose ("Select the folders to
search") multiple accounts, but it only remember last one.
I can't find the related bug. Maybe it could be added to this one.

The multiple-account search is a very basic and needed feature. I think it
should be a 1.1 BLOCKER.
Assignee: sspitzer → mail
Flags: blocking-seamonkey1.0a?
Not blocking 1.0a on this RFE.
Flags: blocking-seamonkey1.0a? → blocking-seamonkey1.0a-
*** Bug 285198 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I have a patch to make the backend support searching across accounts - we just
need to worry about a UI for it - it would be easy to have a ui to search all
accounts, but it would probably be nicer to let the user pick which accounts to
search, instead of having to search all or just one. We also need to worry about
the different search abilities of different kinds of accounts and handle
gracefully the case where the user picks search criteria not supported on a
particular kind of server (esp. news, but also imap)
Assignee: mail → bienvenu
*** Bug 286390 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
TB equiv is Bug 286390 
Depends on: 310484
Myself and the users I support are all accustomed to MS Outlook's "Lookout" plugin, and are quite new to Thunderbird.  In case you're not familiar with Lookout, it adds another search box in Outlook that searches all folders with lightning speed.  Lookout searches so fast because it keeps an index of all email messages and updates this index on a scheduled basis (running in the background), or when the user manually launches a re-indexing (say, after some major re-arranging of mail folders).

Using Lookout is very simple.  You don't have to build a sophisticated query as is seen on Thunderbird's "Search Messages" popup window (the one seen when Ctrl+Shift+F is pressed).  

Getting this same functionality in Thunderbird is currently impossible.  Outlook users migrating to Thunderbird expect to have the small search bar on Thunderbird's main window be able to search all subfolders, like Lookout does.  When it doesn't do this, they get confused and think Thunderbird is "broken".

You may retort that the "Search Messages" popup window does allow the searching of subfolders.  True, but this isn't convenient enough.  Why?  Because novice users are intimidated by the complexity of the "Search Messages" popup window, and don't want to have to learn how to use it.  They expect the small search bar on Thunderbird's main window to search all subfolders of whatever mail folder is selected at the time.  

It is very unintuitive for them to know that the only way they can search subfolders is to use the "Search Messages" popup window.  They start dreaming of how good they used to have it back when they used Outlook.

Please make the small search bar on Thunderbird's main window search all subfolders.  If this is feared to be too CPU-intensive, then please do some magical indexing of email in the background like Lookout does.  If indexing sounds too complicated, then please make a checkbox beside the small search bar on Thunderbird's main window to turn on and off searching subfolders.  If the real estate of Thunderbird's main window is too small to afford one more checkbox on it, then put this checkbox as an option in Tools -> Options, and make searching subfolders be the default.  This way the odd person who has a very old computer can disable it.  The majority of users with relatively new, fast computers will love this intuitive feature and gladly have their computer crunch away to successfully find what they are looking for.

Please don't force 95% of all your users, who are not that technically inclined, to use your relatively complex "Search Messages" tool (the one seen when Ctrl+Shift+F is pressed), to do the very common thing they intuitively want: to search all subfolders.
It really would be nice to be able to search all accounts at the same time. I have 14 POP accounts set up and sometimes do want to search for something in many of them. I have to do the search several times, once for each account. 

I was experimenting with The Bat for a little while thinking about leaving Tbird due to trouble I'm having with rebuilding databases, but during the experimenting, The Bat lost some emails. That was enough experimenting for me. It did have a much nicer search function though. You could search all accounts, or select accounts or even folders in accounts, by just checking or unchecking boxes. 

I don't really think that much flexibility is needed, but I think we do need to at least have the option of searching all accounts at once. 
Moving to Core. If someone figures out how to make a smart UI for this in one of the apps, I'm sure it will get ported to the other (perhaps as a follow up bug).
Assignee: bienvenu → nobody
Flags: blocking-seamonkey1.0a-
Product: Mozilla Application Suite → Core
QA Contact: laurel → search
Hardware: PC → All
Product: Core → MailNews Core
Flags: wanted-thunderbird3?
Marking as not specifically wanted for Thunderbird 3 - the reason being is that we're working towards our global indexing database being available (bug 464354), which will provide a lot of the cross-account functionality in its search (bug 474701). We'd therefore rather developers and volunteers put effort into improving that than working on this.

If someone does want to do a patch for this bug, we would be happy to review it etc.
Flags: wanted-thunderbird3? → wanted-thunderbird3-
(In reply to comment #8)
> This RFE bug is badly messed up, I think, because it keeps trying to change
> its
> stripes:
> 
> Original Title and Description: He seems to includes searching the SERVERS
> without downloading all of the messages?? Nearly impossible, I think. (one
> way
> for pop, another way for imap....)

The wording was a bit off, using "server" instead of "account", but I know what that person meant by it. Some replies are slightly off the original topic, but the original topic is something that has been an annoyance to me for several years now, ever since I switched from Netscape.
(In reply to comment #23)
> Marking as not specifically wanted for Thunderbird 3 - the reason being is
> that we're working towards our global indexing database being available (bug
> 464354), which will provide a lot of the cross-account functionality in its
> search (bug 474701). We'd therefore rather developers and volunteers put
> effort into improving that than working on this.
> 
> If someone does want to do a patch for this bug, we would be happy to review
> it etc.

Even in TB5 we still can't search messages in all accounts at once. This topic has been going for several years now, in bug reports and mozillaZine posts. 

I use the "saved search folder" option to get around this problem, but I know a little about programming and I don't see adding an "all accounts" option as a hard task for the message searching. I wish I had the time to study creating my own addon. My first one would be this.
(In reply to Mike from comment #25)
> (In reply to comment #23)
> > Marking as not specifically wanted for Thunderbird 3 - the reason being is
> > that we're working towards our global indexing database being available (bug
> > 464354), which will provide a lot of the cross-account functionality in its
> > search (bug 474701). We'd therefore rather developers and volunteers put
> > effort into improving that than working on this.
> > 
> > If someone does want to do a patch for this bug, we would be happy to review
> > it etc.
> 
> Even in TB5 we still can't search messages in all accounts at once. This
> topic has been going for several years now, in bug reports and mozillaZine
> posts. 

I can and I have gload enabled and I just use the search toolbar for that.
Removing myslef on all the bugs I'm cced on. Please NI me if you need something on MailNews Core bugs from me.
Whiteboard: [Saved Search Folder(Virtual Folder) is an alternative]
Severity: normal → S3
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.