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Find an email from years ago by its attachment’s name

1 October 2026 · searched as find email by attachment name

You remember the file — “the invoice”, a forecast spreadsheet, a signed PDF — but not who sent it or when. MailCode can search the attachment names themselves, across every account and every archive you have imported, in one search.

How to do it

Open All Mail at the top of the explorer, so the search covers every account and the Local Archive at once.
Type a: and part of the file name: a:invoice, a:forecast, or a:.pdf for every PDF.
Add what else you remember. f:alice narrows by sender, dd:2023 to one year, and plain words search the subject and body as well: a:contract f:legal dd:2023.
Open a result. The file is in the attachment strip under the message — View it, Open it in its own app, or save it.

MailCode: a:invoice across All Mail: 155 matches, with the files in the opened message listed under it. — `a:invoice` across All Mail: 155 matches, with the files in the opened message listed under it.

a: matches real attachments only, not the logo images in signatures, so a search for a:.png is not buried in them. It answers from the mail MailCode keeps on your disk — everything inside the “Keep mail locally” window, and everything imported — so it works offline and does not touch the server.

MailCode is a mail client for Mac and Windows that keeps your mail in a searchable archive on your own disk. Free for 14 days.

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