Forum Discussion
Teams messages search function does not show full conversation
When using the search function in Teams chat, is there a way to see more than just one specific message (I would like to see the response to the message)? For example, I searched for a question that I asked someone but I want to know what their response was. Right now I can only see the question I asked. Here is a screenshot.
In my opinion, we should be able to navigate through the conversation after searching.
168 Replies
- This is such a key feature, I'm finding it hard to believe Microsoft still has not addressed this. This is embarrassingly bad. Please show context in search when selected (there's absolutely no point in showing just the message alone) - just simply go to the message directly in the channel/chat, I 100% consider search right now BROKEN with the way it is set up - it is unusable. I cannot search my chat history properly and find important historical info without finding first and then manually scrolling through history (which can sometimes be prohibitively long). How is this so low priority that you haven't gotten to it over the years since this was first mentioned. I'm also surprised internally in Microsoft nobody has complained about this, unless you set up a wall to block feedback. really really bad and clearly being ignored.
Maybe Microsoft should "harmonize" Bing so its search is as "useful" as Teams search - e.g. you can see the search result summary but you can't actually go to the actual webpage that shows the content... 😉
Jason Drew
Good news everyone, I just noticed that the new Teams version has solved this issue by adding a "Go to message" button!!
After you search for something, you hover over the result, and the button shows up.Congrats !
This is in MacOS btw...- THAT FIXED IT!!!! Might have taken a couple years but good it got taken care of!
BisherDokkmakZappien What version?
Not seeing it on windows version 1.4.00.29469
- "You have Microsoft Teams Version 1.4.00.29477. It was last updated on 13/11/2021."
I am using macOS Monterey.
- a hackish terrible workaround: use 3rd party code to download all messages from a chat conversation and then ctrl+f within that
https://github.com/edgraaff/teams-chat-backup- Definitely a work-around but really sad that Slack is leaving Microsoft in the dust with user experience. Only thing I can figure is Microsoft doesn't use Teams or they'd be complaining, too.
- We left Slack because it was paid though, and moved to using Teams, so ups and downs? it's funny that this issue hasn't been resolved since 2019...
- This was working perfectly fine until just recently, what a useless search function now!
frzir I think the people that are saying it "used to work" or "works sometimes" need to understand what I believe is going on. Teams has a cache of messages stored local, if what you are searching for is a recent search and/or the message thread is still in its local cache you will see the search results in the full conversation. If not then you only see the one message.
Not sure if there is a way to load more into the cache but if you find a message from a year ago you'd better plan on spending the rest of the day scrolling back. And if you do, NEVER change conversations because when you go back to where you were scrolling you'll be back to today and have to start over scrolling and scrolling.
And for reference, I also use Slack, just did a search and found a message from over 2 years ago, clicked on it and in less than ONE SECOND it popped that message up in the context of the complete conversation. Slack rocks! Teams is useless for recovering information from previous conversations (unless they happened in the last day or two).
phlyx Reposting this tip in case it got lost above. No need to scroll through a year's worth of chat unless you have nothing to search on. If you're able to search on _something_ and can find the date of the chat you're interested, perform a search like this: (Sent:2019-11-13 From:Karen) OR From:Brian Sent:2019-11-13
Use that entire string, including parentheses, both sides of the OR statement. That returns on the left all the messages between Karen (me) and Brian on 11/13/19, ordered by timestamp.
Jason Drew I had the same issue and managed to find a workaround. Not the best but it does the trick and only need to setup once and won't have to do it again.
Setup:
- First you need to have power automate installed in your MS Teams (You can install from the apps store)
- Open power automate app in teams and go to the create tab, search for template "follow up on a message" and click on it to start the setup.
- click edit in advanced mode
- In the delay step change the unit from minutes to seconds and save (you will see why later)
Search:
- Now search for the message you want as usual
- hover over the message in question, you will see bunch of emojis and three dots.
- click on the three dots, click more actions from the submenu and then choose the flow you created "Follow up on a message"
- once you click the flow you will be prompted to enter a reminder time, choose 20 minutes an submit (we changed the minutes to seconds in the setup step, so it will remind in 20 seconds not 20 minutes)
- after the 20 seconds have passed, you will receive a reminder with a link to view the message. once you click the link it will take you to the original thread you wanted.
ps. you could go into the power automate app to edit the flow adaptive card (first step) to show different values and reminder options if you want. i.e. remine after 1 second instead of 20
Good luck
ashhashtaka Thanks for sharing, that's a really creative workaround. I think the success of clicking on "View Message" from the reminder might be dependent on how recent the chat is, or perhaps the size of the data required to search. The process worked perfectly to navigate back to a 2019 convo I had with a co-worker who I rarely chat with... but it freezes up Teams entirely when I try to do the same thing for a co-worker that I chat with daily (I just get that purple circle that endlessly spins, until Teams becomes unresponsive and I have to force it closed). Curious to hear if it works for others.
- Hi Karen, thanks for the complement. And yes, I had the same problem when I looked for a 1 year old message, I left it for a couple of minutes with the loading circle and went and did some other work and it eventually loaded the thread.
I believe the problem here is exactly the same reason the native search doesn't show the full thread which is 'MS Teams doesn't have those message locally in the cache %appdata%\Microsoft\teams' and have to download it all from MS servers on demand. Same happen if you try to scroll back in a chat, it load bit by bit which is a nightmare if you are trying to scroll back a year in a busy chat.
Defiantly not the best solution, but its worth it if you are looking for something important until MS address the issue.
It appears this is still an issue.... HOWEVER, what I have found a trend where I can see the full chat history when doing a search in MS Teams if the person who I was chatting with has their Outlook Calendar permissions set to Read:Free/Busy time, subject, location.
Would still like to see the full chat history for every 1:1 chat, group chat, and meeting chat! For some reason, I can see the full chat history for one group chat but then not for another when I do a search.
edit to my previous comment: that trend was broken. I stumbled upon searches with the same person that either led to navigate to the full chat history or just the message with the search text.
- normajean999
Antheaxx
JenniferReidy
ch1000540
I believe Teams will display the surrounding messages depending on how old the chat is. For more recent chats, it will show you the returned search result within the context of the full conversation; older chats will only appear as an isolated message.
As a workaround, once you're able to identify the person and date of the conversation you want to review, perform a search like this: (Sent:2019-11-13 From:Karen) OR From:Brian Sent:2019-11-13
(Use that entire string, both sides of the "OR", replacing "Karen" and "Brian" with your names).
The returned results on the left include all messages from me (Karen) or Brian on 11/13/19, in order of message timestamp. Not perfect, but hopefully will help you until better functionality is available in Teams.
- It was working for me a while ago but it seems broken again. I can only search a message in particular but I can't see the context anymore. It is pretty annoying.
Jason Drew + everyone. Is there a user voice for this yet? I would love to vote for this to be fixed.
Any updates or user voice because my company is struggling that search works only for a few with showing history and not showing for most. It's a big issue!!!!
normajean999 same, so annoying!
This is literally so annoying. I can find conversations I am looking for but can't find my own replies, or what I actual need FROM the conversation. If only the search function worked like WeChat or ANY OTHER MESSAGING APPLICATION.
Looking at this in late August of 2020. Searching should be a day one feature. I would like to like Teams, but...
Jason Drew Very far from a perfect solution, but I did find a way to use Keyword Query Language that returns results in a way that's a bit more meaningful. After you're able to identify the person and date of the conversation you want to review, perform a search like this: (Sent:2019-11-13 From:Karen) OR From:Brian Sent:2019-11-13
The returned results on the left include all messages from me (Karen) or Brian on 11/13/19, in order of message timestamp. Not perfect, but better than scrolling through months' worth of chats.
KarenKim Thank you! This really saved me some time.
