How to Find Emails

Search and filter your emails to find exactly what you need. With no search terms, Outlook Assistant lists your most recent messages.

List Recent Emails

Ask your AI assistant to show your latest emails:

“Show me my recent emails”

tool: search-emails

With no parameters, this returns the 25 most recent emails from your inbox.

Search by Sender

“Find emails from sarah@company.com”

tool: search-emails
params:
  from: "sarah@company.com"

You can also search by partial name:

tool: search-emails
params:
  from: "Sarah"

Search by Subject

“Find emails about the quarterly report”

tool: search-emails
params:
  subject: "quarterly report"

The subject parameter uses an OData filter (contains(subject, ...)) which works reliably on both personal and work/school accounts.

Search by Keywords

“Search my emails for budget approval”

tool: search-emails
params:
  query: "budget approval"

The query parameter searches across subject, body, and other fields.

Personal accounts: Free-text query search uses Microsoft’s $search API, which has limited support on personal Outlook.com accounts. Outlook Assistant handles this automatically — if $search returns no results, it progressively falls back to OData filters (from, subject, to), then boolean filters, then recent message listing. For the most direct results on personal accounts, use the structured filter parameters below. See Account Compatibility for details.

Filter by Date Range

“Show me emails from January 2026”

tool: search-emails
params:
  receivedAfter: "2026-01-01"
  receivedBefore: "2026-02-01"

Dates use ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD or full YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ).

Find Unread Emails Only

“Show me my unread emails”

tool: search-emails
params:
  unreadOnly: true

Find Emails with Attachments

“Find emails with attachments from this month”

tool: search-emails
params:
  hasAttachments: true
  receivedAfter: "2026-03-01"

Search a Specific Folder

By default, searches look in the inbox. To search another folder:

“Show me my sent emails to john@company.com”

tool: search-emails
params:
  folder: "sentitems"
  to: "john@company.com"

Common folder names: inbox, sentitems, drafts, deleteditems, archive, junkemail.

Search Across All Folders

“Search all my folders for the contract document”

tool: search-emails
params:
  query: "contract document"
  searchAllFolders: true

Combine Filters

Filters stack — use multiple parameters together:

“Find unread emails from Sarah with attachments received this week”

tool: search-emails
params:
  from: "Sarah"
  unreadOnly: true
  hasAttachments: true
  receivedAfter: "2026-02-24"

Control the Number of Results

tool: search-emails
params:
  count: 10

Mode	Default count	Maximum
List (no query)	25	50
Search	10	50

Track Inbox Changes (Delta Sync)

Monitor your inbox for new, modified, or deleted emails since your last check:

“Check for new emails since my last sync”

tool: search-emails
params:
  deltaMode: true

On the first call, this returns current emails and a deltaToken. Pass that token on subsequent calls to get only changes:

tool: search-emails
params:
  deltaMode: true
  deltaToken: "previous-token-here"

Delta sync is useful for inbox monitoring workflows, audit trails, and notification triggers. See Monitor Your Inbox with Delta Sync for agent integration patterns.

Parameter Reference

Parameter	What it does	Example
query	Free-text search across all fields	"budget approval"
from	Filter by sender email or name	"sarah@company.com"
to	Filter by recipient	"team@company.com"
subject	Filter by subject line	"quarterly report"
folder	Which folder to search	"sentitems"
unreadOnly	Only unread messages	true
hasAttachments	Only messages with attachments	true
receivedAfter	Received after this date (ISO 8601)	"2026-01-01"
receivedBefore	Received before this date	"2026-02-01"
searchAllFolders	Search every folder	true
count	Number of results to return	10
kqlQuery	Raw KQL for advanced queries	"from:ceo AND hasAttachment:true"
outputVerbosity	Detail level: minimal, standard, full	"minimal"

Tips

• No query parameters = list mode (most recent emails first)
• Use outputVerbosity: "minimal" when you just need subject lines and dates
• For advanced queries, see the KQL Search Reference
• Combine from + receivedAfter for the most targeted searches
• Personal accounts (Outlook.com): Outlook Assistant automatically tries multiple search strategies if $search is unavailable, but subject, from, to, and date range filters give the most direct results. See Account Compatibility

Related

• Read Email Threads — read an email after finding it
• Export Emails — save search results to disk
• KQL Search Reference — advanced query patterns
• Tools Reference — search-emails