Raw Query Filter Outlook Mac


        
            
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            Perform OR queries for categories on Microsoft Outlook for Mac
Bizarrely, one cannot make OR queries in Microsoft Outlook for Mac, at least not easily.

For example, I want a smart folder that contains all messages tagged with either the FIS Broker category or the Dubletten category.
The way to do it non-easily is to select Raw Query as the query rule type (in Search > Advanced), and then enter a Spotlight query string.

The attribute to query for categories is com_microsoft_outlook_categories.

That attribute takes a numeric id - but what the hell is the id for a category like FIS Broker?

Outlook doesn't tell me, so I have to go even deeper down the rabbit hole.

Here is how:

Tag a message with a sufficiently unique message title with the categories you're interested in (e.g., FIS Broker and Dubletten).
On the commandline, navigate to the folder that contains the raw MS Outlook messages:

$ cd ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile/Data/Messages

Grep for the title of the message to find the file that contains it:

$ grep -r -i "A sufficiently unique message title" ./*
Binary file ./11/0B2132B7-999F-4114-AC6C-E93DE72CEF9A.olk15Message matches
Binary file ./156/9C6C3E09-C2A3-42CE-A5EF-CEAB70865FC5.olk15Message matches

Now run the mdls command on that file to find the attached Spotlight metadata:

$ mdls ./11/0B2132B7-999F-4114-AC6C-E93DE72CEF9A.olk15Message

You'll get a long list of metadata. For our com_microsoft_outlook_categories attribute we get something like:

com_microsoft_outlook_categories               = (
    87,
    86
)

So there we have our category ids!
Finally, the raw Spotlight query to match all messages tagged with either one of these categories and put them in a smart folder is:

com_microsoft_outlook_categories == 86 || com_microsoft_outlook_categories == 87

Sources:

http://xensoft.com/search-mac-outlook-2011-mail-with-raw-queries/
https://superuser.com/questions/1388473/how-does-one-find-possible-values-for-com-microsoft-outlook-categories-in-outloo