Android full phone search

[sam007]

Guys

The iphone has a search function which searches the entire phone - email, files, etc

Is there a similar app for android. I can't even search my corporate email

Thanks

 

[Tim K]

On 4.1 (Jelly Bean) Google definitely can search the whole phone. You can even select what you want it to include in searches (music, drive, apps, contacts, twitter, amazon, etc.). However, if you want to search gmail you need to search within the gmail app. Not sure why, probably because the gmail app only caches 25 emails on the phone and the rest are online....so searching on the phone would be pretty pointless. I don't use corporate email on my phone so I can't speak about that (though since its not specifically listed as a choice my guess would be that you'd need to search from within the email app itself.)

I don't recall how in depth the phone search was on 4.0.1-4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). I'm pretty sure it would search contacts, music, and apps but honestly I can't remember what else.

 

[sam007]

How do i perform a search on the phone for contacts, music, etc?

 

[theguest13]

if i remember correctly, searching the whole phone, or information that is gathered from more than one external source blah blah, is one of apples 'patents' so it got excluded with updates that get pushed through.

Ill try and find the article just in case i dreamt it.

 

[nomarsgirl]

How do i perform a search on the phone for contacts, music, etc?

Just use the search bar on your home screen. I know it works on my phone running stock ICS. This may disappear when I get the Jelly Bean update. I believe this is what Apple sued Google about and Google was forced to change it.

 

[Tim K]

It has not been changed in Jelly Bean or in the version of ICS that most people are running. Rumor has it the IMM76Q update had this feature removed. Just do a normal search and the results will be listed out.

For those on Jelly Bean, go into search (or google Now) and click the menu button, then settings, then phone search and you'll see the options for what to search.

 

[idic]

On 4.1 (Jelly Bean) Google definitely can search the whole phone. You can even select what you want it to include in searches (music, drive, apps, contacts, twitter, amazon, etc.). However, if you want to search gmail you need to search within the gmail app. Not sure why, probably because the gmail app only caches 25 emails on the phone and the rest are online....so searching on the phone would be pretty pointless. I don't use corporate email on my phone so I can't speak about that (though since its not specifically listed as a choice my guess would be that you'd need to search from within the email app itself.)

I don't recall how in depth the phone search was on 4.0.1-4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). I'm pretty sure it would search contacts, music, and apps but honestly I can't remember what else.

You can choose how many days worth of emails are synced on per label basis. I have 30 days of Inbox messages, and all my starred messages and a couple of other important labels. Basically, you can sync anything you want to the phone - just go into the settings.

 

[Jay3]

I just tested it after JB update. It still does a whole phone search that returns potential contacts (people) and songs. Not emails though.

 

[Tim K]

No, it won't search emails.... which is understandable and probably speeds up the search significantly. I wouldn't want it to search all my emails every time even if they were stored locally on my phone. If there's something in an email I need to find I search within the email app.