I'm always looking for a better way to do things. I love Kmail! I just discovered a way to search for strings inside of a Kmail folder using regular expressions.
To so a search on a folder, do the following:
- Highlight a folder to search with your mouse.
- Press the lowercase-S key to bring up the search dialog that searches the highlighted folder.
- Look for two pull-down menus in the dialog that are side-by-side.
- Notice that the search dialog has two pull-down menus that are side-by-side.
- Note that the left-most pull-down menu allows you to specify how much of the message to search on. For example, you can specify the subject line only if desired.
- Note that the right-most pull-down menu allows you to specify how you will search. For example, you can specify that your search will be done with regular expressions.
- On the right-most pull-down menu choose matches regular expr.
- To the right of the right-most pull-down menu is a text-entry box. Enter the regular expression you wish to do a search on.
- Find the Search button in the upper-right-hand corner of the dialog. Click on it to initiate the search.
- Look for the message area at the bottom of the dialog that indicates how many messages have been searched so far.
- Look for the word Done in the message area.
- Click on Open Search Folder button in the bottom right-hand corner of the dialog.
- The search dialog will now close and the Last Search folder will now open.
The Last Search folder is one of my favorite features. The folder contains only those emails that are a product of your last search. Perhaps my favorite part of the Last Search folder is that all the emails inside of it are links rather than copies.
Since the Last Search folder links to email messages rather than copies them, it means that you can manipulate email messages as desired.
Here's an example of how you might move all messages in your inbox that mention Larry to a folder called Larry:
- Use the steps given above to search your inbox for messages containing the term Larry
- Look in the Last Search folder.
- Click on the first message you wish to move to the folder called Larry
- Add to the list of messages you'd like to move by doing a control right click on the first message you'd like to add. As you add more and more messages, more and more messages will highlight.
- Left click on the highlighted messages
- Choose Move to to move all highlighted messages to the Larry folder.
- Note that moving messages out of Last Search also moves them out of inbox.
I'm so glad I learned how to do this! Being able to search on messages and then move them around is a big help. It means that when I get overwhelmed by multiple emails from the same people, or on the same topic, I can organize these messages easily by first, isolating them with a search, and second, moving them to their own folder.
Just another reason I use Kmail.
Ed Abbott
