Searching Messages

The BlackBerry provides you with a helpful Search feature so that you can easily locate messages by subject or by sender. You can directly access the Search feature from the Home screen by clicking the Search Messages icon or by pressing S on the keypad.

When you bring up the Search Messages screen, as shown in Figure 7-3, you see several fields where you can enter text for your search. You are provided with fields for name, subject, message, folder, type, and show. You do not need to enter search criteria for each field, only the ones you want searched; however, the more information you enter, the more narrow your search will be. These fields perform specific searches, as described here:

Figure 3:


You can search using a number of helpful fields.

· Name Enter a name that you want to search for and use the associated In field to specify the location of the name, such as To, From, CC, BCC, and so on.

· Subject Enter keywords in this field to search for a desired subject.

· Message Enter keywords that may appear in the message text.

· Folder Enter a keyword to search by folder.

· Type Enter a keyword to search by message type.

· Show You can narrow your search to specific types of messages by specifying one of the following options: Received Only, Saved Only, Sent and Received, or Sent Only.

You can enter keywords by hand directly into the desired fields, but you can also access the menu on this screen to help you a bit. For example, you can use the menu to select names, clear fields, and even save and recall searches.

For example, let’s say that I perform a specific search to locate the word “contract” in the text of certain e-mails, as shown in Figure 7-4.

Figure 4:


Type the information you want to search on.

Once I’m done searching, I decide to save this search for future use, so I click the trackwheel and click Save Search from the menu that appears. This action opens an additional screen, shown in Figure 7-5, where I can enter a name for the search and designate a hot key (ALT-n, where n is any keyboard letter) so I can easily perform the same search again using the hot key I assigned. For example, for my search, I entered a keyboard hot key of ALT-A. Whenever I want to perform the search on “contract,” I can just press ALT-A, and the search will be performed and the results returned to me.

You can also use the Recall Search feature on the Search Messages menu to select the name of the previously saved search that you want to perform. This feature works well if you do not like using hot keys.

Figure 5:


You can save your search parameters.

Once you recall a search, you can also edit it. For example, let’s say you save a previous search, but now you want to search on a different name than the one you originally provided in the Name field. No problem—once you recall the search, you simply click the trackwheel and select Edit Search from the menu that appears and make editorial changes to the search as desired.

Note: Searches always function best if you are specific about what you want to find. However, if your search returns no matches, you are probably using too narrow of an approach. Try leaving some fields open or using more keywords.

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