This seems like a simple request: Add the ability to use relative dates in search folders. I don’t care if it uses existing search fields like before/after, a new field, or whatever. I just need to be able to see at a glance all of my mail from (ideally) just this week or at least from the last seven days on a rolling basis without having to edit the search constantly.
EX: after: last 7 days
EX: before: this week
EX: sent: this week
EX: sent: last week
EX: sent: today
I see this has been mentioned previously in various other threads, but I don’t see it tagged as a feature request, hence this new post.
I chose Thunderbird over eM Client when evaluating various options a couple years ago, and the lack of relative dates in search folders is what made the difference. The search/smart folder I use most in Thunderbird (on my Windows computer) and in the Mail app (on my Macs) is “Last 7 Days” (Thunderbird) and “This Week” (Mail). I have lots of filters moving messages into various folders automatically, so to have a search folder that aggregates these into a single location is critical. I love the eM Client UI, but this is a dealbreaker.
To search “via date” click the (down arrow) on the right of the “search field” top right. Then click (advanced search) at the bottom as in the 1st example below.
Then you can either modify any of the “rules” or “add rules” to select dates in the search field by eg: Before, After, Received Before and Received After" by clicking the existing dropdown fields as in the 2nd example screenshot below, or you can click “Add Rule” at the bottom and modify those.
Finally at the top (After selecting your search by date rules) then type the eg: (Contact Name) or (Email address) at the (Far Left of the search field) as in my 3d example screenshot below.
In this example below, i get all the Peter Parker (Spiderman) emails from the 1st Jan 2021 to the 28th April 2021 when i click “Search” at the bottom.
With respect, you’re missing the point. I don’t want a hard-coded date in a rule – just the opposite. I want a search folder that, with no editing of the search, always shows emails from the last X number of days, just from this week, etc.
Example: Let’s say I have a search folder that, with the suggested improvement, shows me all of the emails in the past week and so today it shows me everything since 21 April. If I look at that same search folder tomorrow, it should show me everything since 22 April. A week from now the folder would show everything from 28 April.
Thunderbird and Mail both do this, and so do other clients like Outlook. FWIW, Mail and Outlook are much better than Thunderbird for this, since they both include not just X number of days but “this week,” “last week,” etc. I use Thunderbird instead of Outlook for my personal email only because the Windows computer is my work laptop and I need to keep my personal email separate. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find a Windows client aside from Outlook that does this and has a great UI like eM Client, and I can’t run multiple instances of Outlook to keep the email accounts completely separate.
I can do better than a mockup. This is exactly what it looks like in three different apps. (Have to post in three replies since “new users can only put one embedded media item in a post.”)
I would also appreciate this. I’m still using Mozilla Thunderbird and thinking to move to eM Client , but this is something which makes me wait a little bit more …
Searching based on a relative date like last 30 days or last week was one of the first things I looked for in the advanced search settings. I am glad to hear the developers are considering adding this.
just piling on: I am yet another person looking for relative dates, e.g. “search for email from my boss sent within the last two days that I have not yet replied to”
actually, I usually create a little matrix read/unread ( on capable systems)
From Today(-1day) -2 day -7 days -30 days
Boss 4/8 7/16 10/20 20/40
Wife …
Dev List …
where the accounts are unread/total
and I can click on any of the counts to get to the search
but I’m dreaming in Technicolor here. Relative dates or something I just always hope for, both Gmail and Outlook have them
(3) there seems to be a hopefully minor problem in your implementation. when you save this search folder, the suggested title uses an absolute date. you can understand my confusion, perhaps.
I hope that this is just a bug in preparing the saved search suggested Folder name. I hope that the unfortunate suggested folder title does not indicate that you can specify a date range relative to the date that you created the saved search, not the date that you are opening or viewing or running the saved search.
@Gary: " you can name the folder whatever you want"
sure, my point is that YOU/eMclient gave the folder a default name which is inaccurate and misleading, which implies that it is not a relative date search.
of course, if you don’t care about your default behavior being inaccurate and misleading, have at it
Not interested in joining the petty b****ing going on here that really soured an otherwise productive thread, but I think all @Ag47 was suggesting was that the default suggestion be more in line with the selected criteria. If I were to use the new “date within” selector as in his latest screenshot, I would expect the suggested name to be something like “within 1 week” instead of having a specific date in the default suggestion. I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that it’s really difficult for the end user to change it after the fact; it’s simply not good UX. Just my two cents, which I know isn’t worth much.
@brossow yeah, sorry about the petty bitching, I try to be nice to tech-support because I used to be tech-support, but sometimes I get tired and grumpy about answers that miss the point. apology also to you @Gary
