Xobni

A few years ago, one of my buddies turned me on to Xobni (http://www.xobni.com/).  It's an add on for your outlook that works so much better than the built in search.  There are two flavors, free and pay.  I haven't used the pay version, but i've talked to a few people who have and they like the additional features.

Like i said, i use the free version and really love it.  It adds a sidebar to your outlook that lets you search through all your email.   Not only that, but if you use the reading pane (everyone should use the reading pane), Xobni (inbox spelled backwards) will automatically display the search results for the currently selected email.  So, for example, if i am currently reading an email from my boss, Xobni will automatically display the following information:

• Contact information - xobni will glean this information from all your past emails by looking at the signatures!)
• Usage statistics - shows how many emails you get on an average per hour from the selected person, how many emails to you from that person and vice versa.  It will also show you how that person ranks (i.e. is that person your #4 most contacted person)
• Conversations - xobni pulls up all emails from that person and groups them by email thread.
• Attachments from that person
• Links in emails from that person
• Appointments with that person
• Other people in your communications network with that person

There are also plug ins to automatically display that person's linkedin, facebook, twitter profiles, skype account information, etc.  Anyway, it's a useful tool and you can get it for free.  It seriously speeds up the amount of time it takes me to find stuff in my email.