I too have been desperately looking for a way to get Search Folders working
with IMAP accounts, and shared a sad laught at Diane's very ... consice
answer.
However, I think I may just have found a solution. Anyway, it's working
quite well for now!
Here’s what I did:
1. I made sure I had a local copy of my IMAP folders to have access to them
while offline. Here’s a good link with detailed instructions for this:
http://www.cmu.edu/computing/documentation/outlook_adv/outlook_adv.html#disconnect
2. I then added my local IMAP .pst file manually so it appears a second time
in the list. (Tools, Options, Mail Setup, Data Files…, Add…, and then select
your IMAP .pst file). To make sure there is no confusion I added “local copyâ€
to the name of the entry.
3. Doing so, there is now a second copy of the mail folder that appears in
Mail Navigation pane (with “… local copy†in my case). The good news is,
unlike the one that is created there automatically by Outlook for my IMAP
account, this one appears in the list of sources when you create Search
Folders!
So far it’s working great. I only have one physical copy of the file on my
hard drive, so there is not space or synchronization problem. Outlook simply
sees it as a local file and as such allows me to create Search Folders for it.
I hope this helps..
) thanks for the response.