Issue with Fastmail search

fernandoepps · 30 May 2024, 03:47 PM

Hello,
I am having an issue, and a ticket I submitted has been escalated to developers (so they say) but the issue still exists. I do a simple search for a single word. I was searching for a software package I knew I bought awhile ago but search was not showing any results. I had to dig through my folders and sure enough it was there. I opened a ticket and they had me create a special folder and copy the email there so they could investigate. I did and even found others too. I copied those to the folder as well for them and they can see the same thing I am but no resolution and now ticket is just stale. What sucks is I paid for 3 years a month ago. I also updated accounts with masked emails at over 30 places so it is not something I can just move away from at this point.

Avion · 30 May 2024, 04:26 PM

FYI, this exact same question was posed on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fastmail/co...stmail_search/

JeremyNicoll · 30 May 2024, 04:59 PM

According to the reddit post, the OP didn't include double quotes around their single-word search argument.

That means that FM will have done their sort of fuzzy search (what they call 'stemming') of related words.

These days I ALWAYS put double quotes around search arguments.

Also ... the OP said the argument was a 'word'. Was this a 'word' (ie single string of non-whitespace characters, but not just letters), eg "sox123" or "Fantastic-Prog-v123" (both of which would be classed as 'word's in some programming languages), or was it made up from letters only?

If it did have non-letters in it, I think that might require double quotes.

hadaso · 30 May 2024, 05:12 PM

I think sometimes search doesn't find words if they are broken across header lines, or if they are internally broken across lines in the message body (that is, when viewing the email message, they look whole, but when viewing the raw message that is encoded with BASE64 or QP they are in two separately encoded lines).

bipbop · 24 Jun 2024, 08:58 PM

I came here today because of I've experienced the same. I have a mail that can't be found even when I use "Anywhere".

I found that if I search for an exact word in a Subject, it finds it. But if I search for parts of the word, it finds nothing. Like "Guardian" is found. But "Guard" is not.

Just thought I'd post my experience here..

30 May 2024, 03:47 PM	#1
fernandoepps Junior Member Join Date: May 2024 Posts: 1	Issue with Fastmail search Hello, I am having an issue, and a ticket I submitted has been escalated to developers (so they say) but the issue still exists. I do a simple search for a single word. I was searching for a software package I knew I bought awhile ago but search was not showing any results. I had to dig through my folders and sure enough it was there. I opened a ticket and they had me create a special folder and copy the email there so they could investigate. I did and even found others too. I copied those to the folder as well for them and they can see the same thing I am but no resolution and now ticket is just stale. What sucks is I paid for 3 years a month ago. I also updated accounts with masked emails at over 30 places so it is not something I can just move away from at this point.

30 May 2024, 04:26 PM	#2
Avion Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2022 Posts: 125	FYI, this exact same question was posed on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/fastmail/co...stmail_search/

30 May 2024, 04:59 PM	#3
JeremyNicoll Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Dec 2017 Location: Scotland Posts: 505	According to the reddit post, the OP didn't include double quotes around their single-word search argument. That means that FM will have done their sort of fuzzy search (what they call 'stemming') of related words. These days I ALWAYS put double quotes around search arguments. Also ... the OP said the argument was a 'word'. Was this a 'word' (ie single string of non-whitespace characters, but not just letters), eg "sox123" or "Fantastic-Prog-v123" (both of which would be classed as 'word's in some programming languages), or was it made up from letters only? If it did have non-letters in it, I think that might require double quotes.

30 May 2024, 05:12 PM	#4
hadaso The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Holon, Israel. Posts: 4,946	I think sometimes search doesn't find words if they are broken across header lines, or if they are internally broken across lines in the message body (that is, when viewing the email message, they look whole, but when viewing the raw message that is encoded with BASE64 or QP they are in two separately encoded lines).

24 Jun 2024, 08:58 PM	#5
bipbop Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 198	I came here today because of I've experienced the same. I have a mail that can't be found even when I use "Anywhere". I found that if I search for an exact word in a Subject, it finds it. But if I search for parts of the word, it finds nothing. Like "Guardian" is found. But "Guard" is not. Just thought I'd post my experience here..