8 Reasons Why The New Search In Zoho Mail Is Exactly What You've Been Looking For

Being able to find exactly what you're looking for is a wonderful thing. Being able to do so faster is priceless. Your email app's built-in search is probably one of those things you don't quite pay attention to, until one day it fails you miserably in your hour of need. The new search in Zoho Mail is not only faster, but also easier to use and more reliable. Better yet, it's smarter. So here are eight reasons why the new search in Zoho Mail is exactly what you've been looking for.

  1. Keeping it simple: There's no more "basic" and "advanced" search—we just have one dynamic search bar, and it's better than ever before. But while it is more powerful and sophisticated, it doesn't come at the cost of simplicity. Read on to see how.
  2. We call it "Search on-the-go": Previously, apart from typing in my search query, you'd also need to use the mouse or the trackpad to select options and/or filters, from the 'advanced search' menu. With the new search, you get filter suggestions as you start typing, so you can select one by just using the arrow keys. Just stick to the keyboard, and your search becomes a little bit easier.
  3. One search to find them all: Your Zoho Mail account is in fact Mail, Streams, Calendar, Notes, Tasks, Bookmarks, and Contacts all rolled into one. The new search now pulls results from any/all of these apps. Even better, there are dedicated search filters for each app, for a more granular and contextual search. Want an example? You can search in Tasks based on who a task has been assigned to, or for events in Calendar based on the location of, say, a meeting.
  4. There's more where that came from: If you've come to the search bar, you probably need some help. Well, Quick Access is all the help you need. Find frequently searched for options, such as "change password" or "add new account", without scouring through multiple menus and settings. Just seek and ye shall find.True story: I was in my Sent folder the other day when I was surprised to find an email that I had apparently sent (which I was sure I hadn't). It looked suspicious, so I walked over to our anti-spam team and asked them about it. They figured out that it was just an innocuous read receipt, so all I had to do was disable read receipts to avoid setting off such alarm bells in the future—but then I asked myself, where do I find the read receipt setting? You guessed it—I started typing "rea" in the search bar, and "Read Receipt" came up right under Quick Access.
  5. "How'd I do that before...?": Here's something to help you along the way while you get the hang of things with this new search—you can simply run a past search again using the History option. So if you ever find yourself racking your brain to figure out how to run "that one search," just know this: the search bar remembers.
  6. "That's not what I meant!": Many of us have trouble letting go. So we hoard stuff. For your inbox, that means you've probably got emails since the beginning of time. Search results gone wrong in your inbox means you're looking at a ton of irrelevant, useless stuff; and that could get really frustrating when you're trying to find that one important email from last month that you were supposed to follow up on. So we've put in some thought to understand what users search for, and how they use search to find what they're looking for.

    Driven by that, we've made the new search smarter so it can auto-suggest the right search filter(s), making sure you use the most effective means to find what you're looking for. What this means for users is that they can get their hands on what they need, that much faster. For example, with Mail selected, search suggests three potential filters before you even type anything. Start typing in the search bar, and search suggests as many as nine possible ways of using the search string you're entering in.

  7. When in doubt, daisy chain: The icing on the cake of having these many filters, is that you can narrow your search down to fewer, more accurate results. How? You combine multiple filters at the same time.
  8. (Another) True story: A colleague asked me, "Navaneeth, how do I find a Streams post that I made, where I tagged [person X]?" At that point, I actually hadn't gotten a chance to use the new search for Streams yet. I thought I'd give it a shot anyway: "Okay, select Streams from the drop-down in the search bar, and choose 'posted by.' Enter in yourself, combine that with '@mentioned' and enter in [person X]." I kept my fingers crossed as she did as I instructed, and hit enter. "Yep, got it. Thanks!" Voila! Now that's what I'd call intuitive.  It just works the way you, me, or anyone else would think it should.

So there you have it—that's the new search in a nutshell. And it's available starting today. That's a major overhaul of search in Zoho Mail, and we believe it will make life a lot easier for all our users. Give it a spin, and let us know what you think in the comments down below.

For detailed instructions on using the new search, refer to our help doc here. Additionally, to get a comparative perspective between the old and new search, refer to our comparison doc here.


(Zoho Mail is a part of Zoho Workplace, a comprehensive suite of nine productivity and collaboration tools for your business.)

UPDATE: We have pushed out another update to fix the issues reported by some of the users here; you might be prompted to refresh your inbox for the changes to take effect. The new search should work just fine after a simple refresh. We regret the inconvenience caused.

Comments

69 Replies to 8 Reasons Why The New Search In Zoho Mail Is Exactly What You've Been Looking For

  1. Why is it when I search for an email with say "Julia" in it I can't type beyond "ju". I am finding this extremely annoying. In fact I find zoho's email search just really bad in general. Otherwise I am happy and it would be frustrating to have to shift to another provider because of this issue.

    1. Hello, We're sorry for the inconvenience caused. We acknowledge that this was an issue at our end, and it has been fixed now. You shouldn't be facing issues while entering a search key anymore. Try it out, and in case you continue to face any issues, send an email to support(at)zohomail(dot)com. Thanks.

  2. I understand the WHY...but it is a FAIL...Sorry. I can NEVER find emails sent or subject lines of emails sent. The old version worked much better, this version is cumbersome. With all due respect, do the developers USE email search or simply think of ways WE the users want improvement? Why can’t you just leave Zoho as it is?

    1. @Monica, All the employees in Zoho corp manage email with Zoho Mail and use search extensively. We push any updates only after facing brickbats and bouquets from within Zoho. As you may have noticed many others who have commented find it better. We hope your opinion on the new search has changed now.

      1. Please, don't compare your employees to your customers. The new search methodology is much, much worse than the previous one. I's way too compact in a confined space, confusing, less expressive, etc. It's a shame that you guys always ignore your customers' feedback...

  3. Hi, It's cumbersome to use: - small space, crowded for complex searches - very small icon to remove search item (especially on QHD/Retina devices) - can't seem to be able add more than one search item of the same kind (like from:) - couldn't find any way to define logic operators between search items (like from John or from Jim; from John but not in the Inbox; etc) - non-standard text selection: double click should select a single word and not phrase That's after about two minutes of use. The old version worked much better in many aspects and it would be great if it would be optional to use the new one. Thanks in advance, Imre

  4. HOW CAN I GET THE OLD VERSION BACK? IT DOES NOT WORK! IT TAKES A VERY LONG TIME TO "THINK" AND WHEN I PRESS ENTER, WHATEVER I TYPED ON THE SEARCH BAR, APPEARS AGAIN, UGH HEADACHE!

    1. @Karen, Sorry for the troubles you are facing with search. Unfortunately, you cannot revert to the old version. For most users facing problems, a refresh of the UI sorted all issues. Have you tried to refresh? Are you still facing problems?

  5. Your new search tool does not work correctly, its been on an endless loop for 15 minutes searching for something I found in 20 seconds. How can I revert back to the old search function. HELP!!!

  6. If this service has encryption like Protonmail it would be the best email service on earth really and another interesting idea would be to have a zoho cryptocurrency or support for Bitcoin or so i will keep a close eye on any new updates :)

  7. Absolutely brilliant! Having come from Gmail and using Outlook daily, I'm used to typing "from:" or "subject:" to quickly find mails, so this addressed one of my biggest frustrations with Zoho, and made it even better. Now Outlook and Gmail are playing catch-up!

  8. Great work again Zoho! Search works well for me AND I can search my calendar again - something we lost (unless we went back to the old version) when the new interface arrived some time ago. I continue to recommend Zoho for ad-free usability and terrific customer service whenever I have contacted you.

  9. Hi, The new search has been terrible so far. It doesnt find anything and just keeps seaching for ever. Hard to click of the whole typed word if i need to change the word. and hard to see the space of the search bar or click in it as the search part takes up the whole bar. Please fix.

  10. Why can't you just leave Zoho as it is? I know it's yours but I wonder if you test this changes before you upload them. Take it back to how it was. It was working just fine. This change is annoying because IT DOES NOT WORK!!!

  11. this is a huge upgrade! i was just thinking the other day ,the search is good, but could be a lot better. i hope to see this in the mobile app eventually too : ) great work zoho team!

  12. La búsqueda simple se ve perjudicada, de antes era más rápido, ahora se unifico con la avanzada y para realizar una búsqueda sencilla te lleva más tiempo. Creo que era más fácil antes.

  13. New search does not work as of today and is really not needed in our case. I request that we be able to reactivate the old search (through a user option) because it is a simple and effective tool that should remain an option to use.

  14. Actualmente indican que son 50 correos por cuenta FREE, los que estamos en esta cuenta con 25 correos podemos acceder a etsa función?

  15. Como a cada instante as coisas mudam, o E-mail não poderia ser diferente e ficar para trás. Com as mudanças, os traumas se ajustam, acredite na pessoa do Zoho Corp até porque nós também temos que nos aprimorar, não é verdade ?! Não uso full time o Zoho mail por suas limitações de armazenamento e ter compromisso com a Google (GSuite) até meados de 2.019. Por enquanto.

  16. Just wasted 2 hours trying to work out how to use this. If it wasnt broken why fix it? How can i switch back. I can not get it to autofill which is shown in your videos.

  17. I have tried to use the new search this morning and it's just not working AT ALL. Which means I cannot find anything now. Is there a problem?

      1. This feature was available in Zoho Mail version from two years ago, why did it dissappear when changed the GUI? IT is really important find attachments with big size and no way to do that.

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