How to do content search in Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 content search feature helps you keep an eye on the emails sent and received by your organization. Though the Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Center has this capability, it falls short in some of the areas.

For example, pattern-based searches to identify credit card numbers, social security numbers and other personally identifiable information (PII) that follow a regular pattern (REGEX pattern) cannot be done. Also, the content searches cannot be scheduled to run automatically.

M365 Manager Plus' mailbox content search allows you to:

• Search multiple mailboxes: Search across all or selected mailboxes in your Microsoft 365 setup in a single click.
• Perform condition-based searches: Set multiple conditions to filter out the emails you don’t need to view. Eg: Emails that have the term 'Free download' in the Subject and has attachments.
• Rule-based filters: Create rules to identify specific emails. Eg: Eg: Emails read by users with the term 'Free download' in the Subject and has attachments.



• Perform pattern-based searches: Use RegEx and commonly used phrases to identify emails with personal information.
• Automate searches: Create search profiles to look through mailboxes at specified intervals automatically.
• Create alerts: Configure detailed email alerts about automated search results.

Steps to perform search operation

1. Go to the Content Search tab.
2. In the Select Mailbox field, use + to select the mailboxes that you need to search.
3. Set the Seacrh Criteria. Using the + option, you can set multiple conditions. Eg: Subject - Contains - Free download
4. Click Search.

Steps to create a search profile

If you want the tool to perform the search at regular intervals and share the search results via email, you need to create a search profile.

1. Go to the Settings tab.
2. Navigate to Configuration → Search Configuration → Content Search profiles in the left pane.
3. Click on Advanced Options, if you want to configure email notification.
4. Select the Email alerts corresponding to this profile check box.
5. Select the Notification Template using the + option.
6. From the Notify On drop-down, select when the admin should be notified.
   • New Mails - When a new email matching the search criteria is found.
   • Moved Mails - When an existing email matching the search criteria is moved from one parent folder to another parent folder.
   • Deleted Mails - When an email matching the search criteria is deleted.
7. Choose the Include Event Details option, if the details on the result must also be included in the email.
8. Click Add.

Read more about the Microsoft 365 content search feature here.