Yahoo is rolling out new capabilities for searching text, photos and e-mail headers and attachments in its Web-based e-mail service, said company officials this week.
The new search tools allow users to search by sender, folder, attachment, message status and date. Users can also search for contacts or files by just typing in the first few letters of a query.
Search results are presented with a brief bit of contextual information to help users sort through results more easily.
When searching for e-mail attachments such as Adobe PDF or Microsoft Office files, as well as for photos, users are presented with thumbnail views from which they can launch the full files.
Yahoo Inc. has launched the new search functionality for some Yahoo Mail users and plans to extend the capabilities to all Yahoo Mail users in the coming months.
Yahoos move follows Google Inc.s launch last month of Version 2.0 Beta of its desktop search tool, with new features for searching Googles Web-based Gmail e-mail service, Microsofts Outlook e-mail, a users Web history and network drives.