Where Is That Message?

Messenger's sophisticated search abilities make it easy to dig through gobs of e-mail. They're also handy for all sorts of mail-management chores, such as archiving or erasing old mail. Here's how to get the most out of this application's look-for-it faculties.

• Bring up the search window by choosing Edit, Search Messages, or by pressing Ctrl-Shift-F.
  
  
• By default, Search roots through folder you select, including its subfolders (if that doesn't seem to be happening, click the Options button and make sure "Search subfolders" is checked). To look through all your mail, select Local Mail as the search target locale.
  
  
• After crafting your search and getting a list of matches, highlight one of the headers and click the Go to Message Folder button at the bottom left. Messenger takes you to that message's folder, and displays the message in the preview window.
  
  
• Click the File Message button to archive any found message(s) you've selected. (Ctrl- clicking and Shift-clicking work here just as they do within Windows Explorer, so you can easily select multiple messages.) A menu of available folders pops up in the upper left corner of your screen. Pick a folder and Messenger moves the messages.
  
  
• To delete aged messages en masse, use "date," "is before," and enter the desired date as the search criteria. Enter 10/1/1999, for example, when searching through the Inbox, and Messenger locates all messages received prior to that date. You can then select all the messages with a quick Ctrl-A. Delete them by clicking the Delete Message button at the bottom right of the dialog.