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
How in the living hell is there not a better solution to this problem by now?
- Many incompetent characters ruin office schedules obscuring facts totally.... oops, did I just spell Microsoft?
Still doesn't work with the newest teams installed 😞
- This has been solved for me now on Windows. I closed Teams, deleted all files in my Teams cache folder (%appdata%\Microsoft\Teams) and restarted Teams.
Not sure if an update solved it or if cache was the problem to begin with, but it works as intended now.All,
This was posted earlier in this thread, but the preferred workaround is:
- Locate the chat that you are trying to search, or where the singular message resides.
- "Pop" it out into a separate window.
- Go back to search results, and click on the message to go to it.
Now, the message will be shown in the popped out window in full context.
It is a silly limitation and shows that they can fix this issue, but for some reason nobody has taken the time to do so.
It works for me only if it's something recent; something in the cache (e.g. last 3-6 months or whatever). If it's something over a year old it never works.
I tried again today after clearing cache and similar results.
What's the worst is it's those things from years ago that are the hardest to remember.
Teams continually demonstrates itself as the worst IM client I've ever used in my life. I can't believe it's 2022 and this is what we're offered.
- I see. We did change our company retention policy recently so that might have something to do with it too. Agree with everything you say in any case...
- I don't know what's more incredible to me. The fact that this issue has been around for YEARS or the fact that it still is exactly the same problem as when I started using teams a year ago. I am still, two years later, unable to reliably and always see, regardless of age or location, the context around messages I search for.
It's absolutely unreal. I'm so proud to be a Microsoft user. So the display of the message context doesn't work with "Go to message" in the desktop app, version 1.5.00.2164 (64 bits), but it works when using Teams in Chrome browser.
I tested this out and looks like in Chrome here, when I get results in normal Team's threads it DOES bring up the entire conversation. BUT, when I click on results that are in a personal chat with someone or a group of someones, all I get is a blank screen. Only seems to work for results in threads, not chats.
Come on MS, get this fixed.- Just to add to the Teams (not) fun. There is a lot of search/filter syntax and one of the top ones is /activity which will show you all the activity from someone on Teams. This is a great command *BUT* (and there always seems to be a but) there is one person you CANNOT search activity for..... YOURSELF!!!! If you wanted to see all your own activity, tough luck. OMG, does anyone at Microsoft actually USE this stuff?!?!?!?!?!
- It's insane to me that this has been a problem for so long; it can somehow search and find results almost instantly but provides absolutely no context.
The "workaround" doesn't seem to work for me; I gave up waiting for the pinned message to load after 25 minutes.- The so called work-around only works for chats, not for messages in regular channels. We used to use Slack at work but changed to Teams. I still use Slack for some contacts and can honestly say I regret every second we're not on Slack as that features works FLAWLESSLY there. It appears either MS doesn't use their own chat software or they never have a need to search for something more than a couple days old. Kind of like having a file cabinet with an amazing index but regardless of the relevance of something you find in the index, you can never see the document it references. Last time I checked that was called a trash can.
One work around that I found is as follows.
Search message, go to message, hover over it until the emojis appear, click the 3 dots, click Pin.
This will pin the message as a banner on top of the chat. Everyone in the chat can see this pin, so move fast so no one knows you don't know what you're doing at your job haha.
go back to the chat, click on the pinned message at the top and it will take you to that spot in the chat. it may take a moment to buffer if it is loading older messages.
There is a workaround:
- Make the search as usual and identify the chat in which you see the search results you're looking for.- Pop out that chat to its separate window
- Do the search again in the main window.- Clicking "Go to message" will now take you to the pop-out chat and show it in its context.
I forgive Microsoft for this poor implementation since it's an indie start-up tech company.
- Can't seem to make this work on the MacOS version.
ChrisGrasp I'm on Windows so it may very well be that it doesn't work on Mac unfortunately. Only works for private chats also as pointed out so it's really only a workaround for people who are not using team chats very much, such as myself.
- Fine and dandy if it's a chat, but 99% of what we're searching for is in Teams channels and not chats. The channels do not have a 'pop out' option so this work around does not 'work around' the problem.
Dear Jason Drew , hope you solved you issue since.
For the sake of other people looking for this answer:
When on the search-result screen that you pasted,
click on the chat name in the header (before the ">" sign),
this will open the full conversation, and position you at the location of the returned message.
You will find this message in context
so, in your case, including the answer you were looking for.
Hope this helps. If so, vote for this answer?Opens the full conversation???? NOPE!!! Searched for a term, found it in a message chat from 6 months ago in one of our most active channels. I click on GO TO MESSAGE and it brings up that single message by itself with no messages prior to it or after it. I have to go to that channel and scroll back 6 months (several hundred messages) to get to the actual "full conversation".
What you're saying works ONLY IF THE SEARCH RESULTS ARE VERY RECENT, but if it's old then you get one message and NOTHING ELSE. If you want a good example of how it should work try Slack.- Click on "Go to message" for a chat that was, say, 12 months ago. Then you'll see what everyone here is talking about. Users need a way to see the _full_ conversation surrounding a message returned from search -- not just the message in question, and not just the single messages proceeding or following it.
Jason Drew another workaround is that you can use the web version of teams (teams.microsoft.com), search will drop you into the conversation showing all of the context. It would be nice if the windows app would do the same but its better than scrolling endlessly.
- Thanks, I will give that a try.
- This is half true.
If you search for a conversation from several years ago you will see it hangs and takes a long time to show anything. I believe it still loads the entire conversation back to that point hence the huge delay. Terrible design.
- Years later and search is still useless ? Why am I not able to view the entire history of the conversation when searching?
