Searching the Inbox is straightforward, you just type in your query and get your results. But with a few more tips, you can become an advanced user and find what you are looking for much faster!

To perform a full search for conversations or tickets across all inboxes, click the Search icon at the top of the Inbox main menu.

Then, start typing your keywords. Conversations and tickets that match your search will automatically be shown. Use the selector at the top of the results to filter by All, Conversations, or Tickets.

When you make a search, Intercom returns conversations and tickets that match your query.

Your search results will appear in the order of most relevant conversations first. To view the oldest, or newest conversations first, use the dropdown on the right:

You can search for conversations/tickets directly within an inbox view. The search interface differs slightly depending on whether you're using list view or table view, but both provide the same scoped search functionality. This is useful when you want to quickly narrow down results without leaving your current view or inbox.

For list view:

For table view:

Here are the available filters when using the main Inbox search:

To find something more specific, like mentions of a topic within a certain date range, or all conversations with a specific tag, you can add filters to your search. For example, if you’re trying to gauge interest in a new reporting feature, you could search for all conversations with the keyword “Report” that also have the tag “Feature Requests”.

You can also search without any keywords, using only filters to find relevant conversations.

Example: “Tag: Beta feature, Date: Last 30 days”.

To add filters to your search, type any keywords you’d like to include, then select one of the filters below the search bar, such as Tag.

Next, start typing the name of the tag you’d like to filter by, and select the right one.

This will return all conversations containing that keyword, with that tag applied.

If you want to further refine your search, you can add more filters in the same way as above, like Created at date.

Then, select the value you’d like to filter by.

You can also search all inboxes and filter by conversation Data Attributes or ticket Attributes. Simply use the + filters button to choose the filter you need for your search term.

To remove a filter for a broader search, click on the filter and then hit Remove.

Once you have search or filter results in the Inbox, you can act on all matching conversations — not just the ones you've hand-selected.

To select every conversation matching your current search or filter (up to 10,000), press ⌘K (Mac) or Ctrl-K (Windows) to open the Command-K keyboard shortcut menu on any search or filter results view, then choose Select all matching.

From there, you can apply the following actions across the entire matched set:

Tags can be applied to both conversations and people (users and leads) in Intercom. Understanding the difference between the two helps you organize and filter your Inbox more effectively.

To add a tag to a conversation directly from the Inbox:

When you search for a number, the results display the specific conversation matching that ID. The search also includes any conversations where that number appears within the text.

When you search for a number and filter by Tickets, the results display the specific ticket matching that ID. The search also includes any tickets where that number appears within the content.

You can search by users simply typing in their email address. There is no need to select the User filter option first.

If you type in bob@example.com you’ll find all conversations with users with that email address. You can surround the email with quotes if you want to search for the email in the text of the conversation, ie. "bob@example.com"

The table below shows how different email search formats work in Inbox search:

Conversations and tickets are associated with companies in different ways:

Conversations can be associated with companies in two ways:

When you search or filter by company, the search returns:

In table mode, conversations with user-based (implicit) associations will show a tooltip indicating that the association is inferred from the user.
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Tickets can be associated with only one company at a time.

When you search by company, all tickets explicitly associated with that company are returned.

Sort matching conversations and tickets in three ways:

When you search, Intercom looks at various factors and returns the most relevant conversations and tickets first. Some of the factors considered are:

The Relevance sort is used by default because it has a higher chance of surfacing the conversations and tickets you are looking for first. But sometimes this assumption can fail.

For example, sometimes you might be looking for the most recent conversation that matches your query, even though there are other better matches. For these cases, we suggest using the Newest activity sort that returns matching conversations based on when they were last updated.

If you are looking for a particular conversation or ticket, try to search for words that are present in the conversation/ticket but are otherwise uncommon. For example, if you are looking for a conversation containing: Hey, help needed! How do I make cookie dough?. If you search for help needed, you might also find other conversations where people are asking for help. A better search here could be cookie dough.

Adding more words that exist in the conversation or ticket you are looking for will help you find your conversation faster. In the previous example, searching for cookie help needed is better than help needed.

Use double quotes when you know the exact phrase you are looking for. For example, searching for "make cookie dough" will return only those conversations that contain exactly these three words in the same order.

The Inbox search will allow you to search for all conversations currently assigned to a specific teammate and you can also search by the conversation state:
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You can also create an Inbox View to easily access these conversations.

However, these options will not show conversations they participated in that are not currently assigned to the Teammate. If you wish to find all conversations participated in, you will need to create a Custom Report and use the "Chart drill-in" option.

The Created by you inbox shows items created by the teammate who's logged in, so it's a quick way of finding conversations and tickets you've created, even when they’re assigned to someone else.
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This includes:

The inbox counter shows the number of open items that were created by the teammate who's logged in. The counter will automatically update when new items are created or when an item changes status (i.e. closing a conversation will reduce the counter).

In search – Filter Inbox search results with the "Created by" filter. To do this, open the search page, click + filters and select "Created by". Once added, select a teammate.

In views – Use the "Created By" filter when creating views. To do this, open the view modal by either editing or creating a view. Click + Add filter and select "Created by". Once added, you are able to select is, is not, is unknown, and has any value. You can then search for teammates and select one.