Search and Filter the Mailbox

Written by Uday Kumar Updated September 17, 2026 05:09

Who this is for. AP Helpdesk Analysts, Specialists and Managers, and ProcureToPay Managers and Agents. The Mailbox opens for every AP role, on an agent running either function. See the Roles and Access.

A working mailbox holds thousands of messages, so almost everything you do in it starts by cutting the list down. The Mailbox gives you a search box and a row of filters, and both are per view: the filters offered in By Threads are not the filters offered in By Incoming Messages.

This article covers how a filter is built, which fields each view offers, what you can choose inside each one, and how to save a combination you expect to use again.

Search

The search box sits between the view switch and the filters, and its placeholder tells you what it will search: Search threads... in the By Threads view, Search emails... in By Incoming Messages.

Search and filters combine. A search inside an active filter searches only what the filter left behind. Clear the filters to search the whole mailbox.

How a filter works

Every filter opens the same way, and it is worth learning the shape once.

A filter dropdown showing its operator and value list

Figure 1. A filter dropdown: the field name, the operator, the values, and Clear.

Table 1. Parts of a filter.

Part	What it does
Field name	Repeated at the top of the dropdown so you know which filter you opened.
Operator	A selector, set to = (equals). Change it to match on something other than an exact value.
Values	A checkbox for each value. Ticking more than one matches any of them, not all of them.
Search options...	Appears above the values where the list is long, as it is on Status. Type to narrow the list of values.
Clear	Removes this filter. It stays grayed until you have chosen something.

Filters combine with each other. Each one you add narrows the result further, so Sender Type set to External Sender together with Task Status set to Open returns external mail with an open task, and nothing else.

Choose which filters are shown

By Threads offers up to 24 filter fields and shows 5. Ten of the 24 draw their values from your tenant’s reference lists and appear only once those load, so the panel can be shorter. More + opens the Add More panel, where the five above the divider are the ones currently on the toolbar and the nineteen below it are available.

The Add More panel listing all available filter fields

Figure 2. More + opens Add More, listing every filter field the view offers.

Tick the fields you want, untick the ones you do not, then select Apply. Nothing changes until you do. Unticking a field also drops any value you had chosen in it.

The toolbar has finite width, so making room for one field means switching another off.

The By Threads filters

Five fields are on the toolbar when you arrive.

Table 2. Filters shown by default.

Filter	What you choose
Sender Type	External Sender, Internal Sender, System Sender, Unknown Sender.
From	Text. The sender address.
To	Text. The recipient address, which matters where the agent watches more than one.
Task Status	New, Open, Dismissed, Discarded.
Record Match	A vendor, chosen from a searchable list of your vendor master. Use it to see everything one vendor has written.

Table 3. Filters available through More +.

Filter	What you choose
Cc	Text. Matches the Cc line.
Subject	Text.
Body	Text. Searches the message body.
Email Direction	Inbound or outbound mail.
Read Status	Read or unread.
Task Assignment	Whether a review task has been assigned.
High Importance	Whether the sender flagged the message as important.
Folder	Inbox, Sent, Drafts or Archived.
Date	The date of the message.
Thread Date	The date of the thread, which is the date of its most recent message. Use this rather than Date when you want threads that have been active recently.
Label	One of the agent’s labels.
Match Type	Contact or Domain. How the sender was matched to a vendor: by the exact address, or by the domain alone.
Pre-check	Pass or Fail. Whether the message passed the checks the agent runs before it starts work.
Processing State	Stalled, Done, In Progress. Stalled is the one to filter on when you are hunting for messages that stopped part way.
Document Classification	Invoice, Credit Memo, Others. What the agent decided an attached document was.
Task Type	The kind of review task raised on the message.
Attachment Type	Image, PDF, CSV, Any, Other.
Task Assignee	The person a review task sits with.
Last Read By	Who opened the message most recently. Useful for avoiding two people working the same backlog.

The By Incoming Messages filters

This view offers five fields, all on the toolbar from the start. More + still opens the Add More panel, but it lists only those five, with nothing further to add.

Table 4. Filters in the By Incoming Messages view.

Filter	What you choose
Status	The AI status. Fourteen values: New, Triaged, Draft Ready, Draft Skipped, Action Required, Auto-sent, Sent, Forwarded, Auto-submitted, Submitted, Rejected, Failed, Archived, Completed.
Priority	High, Medium, Low.
Sender Type	The same four values as in the other view.
Action	Auto-respond or Needs Review. What the agent decided to do.
Assigned To	Me or My Team.

The Status filter showing its fourteen values

Figure 3. The Status filter. Long value lists carry their own search box.

Three of these fourteen are the ones you will use daily. Draft Ready is a reply waiting for you to release it, Action Required is a message the agent will not act on until someone decides something, and Failed is work that broke.

Save a filter and reuse it

By Incoming Messages can remember a combination. Two controls sit at the right of its toolbar, and neither appears in the other view.

Set the filters you want.
Select Save filter. It stays grayed until at least one filter is set, so it appears disabled on a clean toolbar.
Reopen the combination later from My filters.

The My filters dropdown showing its empty state

Figure 4. My filters, before anything has been saved.

Until you save one, My filters says so: No saved filters yet. Apply a filter and click “Save filter”.

A saved filter is worth setting up for any queue you work every morning, such as Action set to Needs Review with Assigned To set to Me.

Rename or delete a saved filter

A row in My filters carries Rename and Delete alongside the filter itself. Rename opens the same dialog used to save one, with the name field limited to 50 characters; pressing Enter submits it.

Delete asks the browser to confirm, naming the filter. There is no undo, and a saved filter is per person, so deleting one does not affect a colleague’s list.

When a filter returns nothing

Work through these in order.

Check the view. Filters do not carry across when you switch. Each view keeps its own set, and most fields belong to one view only; Sender Type is the one that appears in both.
Check the folder. A filter applies inside the folder you are in, so a message that has been archived will not appear while you are in Inbox.
Check for a search term left in the box from earlier.
Clear one filter at a time rather than all of them, so you learn which one was too narrow.
Widen the date. Date and Thread Date mean different things, and an old thread with a recent reply matches only the second.