How to Find Emails When You’ve Forgotten the Date They Were Sent.

Need to find emails that a client sent you sometime, say, last month?

That’s two separate searches. One search to find emails from that client. And the other to narrow down those emails to the ones from last month. GoldFynch’s Intelligent Search feature helps combine these two searches and save time. Here’s how:

Option 1: You know approximately when the emails were sent.

Let’s search for emails from ‘Goldfy’, sent between January 01, 2012 and October 15, 2014.

Step 1: In the search bar, type in “from:goldfy@goldfynch.com”, and wait for a few seconds. GoldFynch will realize you’re trying a ‘special’ search and will show you a drop-down menu. You’ll see it in the screenshot below. Click on the ‘Emails from goldfy@goldfynch.com’ suggestion.

Step 2. In the search bar, type in “01/01/2012 - 10/15/2014”. In the drop-down menu, GoldFych will suggest searching for documents in that date range (check out the screenshot below). Click that suggestion, and voila! You’ve got the emails you’re looking for.

Option 2: You know the emails were sent after a particular date.

Let’s search for emails from ‘Goldfy’ sent after January 01, 2012.

Step 1: In the search bar, type in “from:goldfy@goldfynch.com”, and wait for a few seconds. GoldFynch will realize you’re trying a ‘special’ search and will show you a drop-down menu. You’ll see it in the screenshot below. Click on the ‘Emails from goldfy@goldfynch.com’ suggestion.

Step 2. In the search bar, type in “01/01/2012 - 01/01/2050”. Note how we’ve typed ‘2050’ as the end date? GoldFynch needs an end date. So just type in any date that’s well into the future.

In the drop-down menu, GoldFych will suggest searching for documents in that date range (check out the screenshot below). Click that suggestion and, again, you’ve got the emails you’re looking for.

Option 3: You know the emails were sent before a particular date.

Let’s search for emails from ‘Goldfy’ sent before January 01, 2012.

Step 1: In the search bar, type in “from:goldfy@goldfynch.com”, and wait for a few seconds. GoldFynch will realize you’re trying a ‘special’ search and will show you a drop-down menu. You’ll see it in the screenshot below. Click on the ‘Emails from goldfy@goldfynch.com’ suggestion.

Step 2. In the search bar, type in “01/01/1950 - 01/01/2012”. Note how we’ve typed ‘1950’ as the start date? GoldFynch needs a start date. So just type in any date that’s well in the past.

In the drop-down menu, GoldFych will suggest searching for documents in that date range (check out the screenshot below). Click that suggestion, and you’ve got the emails you’re looking for.

Have you remembered that the emails are in a particular folder?

Then you can go directly to that folder and search from there:

1. Click the ‘Files’ tab in the left pane of GoldFynch.
2. Click on the folder your emails are in.
3. Search for emails the same way we did above. Except, this time GoldFynch will search only this folder. You’ll see it in orange in the search bar.

GoldFynch uses an email’s primary date when searching.

This is usually the date on which the email was ‘sent.’ But you can change this default date to something else (e.g. the date the email was ‘received’). Just open the email and set a new ‘primary date’ in the right-hand panel.

Don’t want to use GoldFynch’s ‘special search’ feature?

In the examples above, we’ve been using GoldFynch’s ‘special search’ feature. That is, we’re combining search options. Notice how we waited a few seconds after typing in our search terms. If you don’t wait—and hit ‘Enter’ (or click on the ‘Search’ icon) immediately—GoldFynch will do a ‘regular’ search. That’s equally powerful, but it won’t be the special combination of terms we’ve been looking for.