Search box with regex

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pkonderla
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2016 12:44 am

Search box with regex

Post by pkonderla »

On the old versions (5 and 6) works semi regex search syntax.

banana*float
w*bandanna
banana?boat

Can't see this working that on 8.8.15_GA_4545.

Only works:
searchtext*

What about to add this functionality back?
Here is the docs https://wiki.zimbra.com/wiki/Zimbra_Web ... in_Filters
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helper003
Posts: 24
Joined: Fri Feb 12, 2021 3:59 pm

Re: Search box with regex

Post by helper003 »

This could be a BUG so it is better if you can file a case with Zimbra support and provide them the reproducing steps.
mrkr_ru
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2025 4:59 am

Re: Search box with regex

Post by mrkr_ru »

This is my case (not helps you):
If i want to find any subdomains, like: Japan.bankplus.com, Russia.bankplus.com, i'm using this:
from:*".bankplus.*"

1) The first asterisk (*) must be outside the quotation marks
2) The second asterisk (*) must be at the end of the word and before the closing quotation mark

And this is stupid, yes
williamcorlin
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2026 9:30 am

Re: Search box with regex

Post by williamcorlin »

mrkr_ru wrote: Thu Sep 25, 2025 5:13 am This is my case (not helps you):
If i want to find any subdomains, like: Japan.bankplus.com, Russia.bankplus.com, i'm using this:
from:*".bankplus.*"

1) The first asterisk (*) must be outside the quotation marks
2) The second asterisk (*) must be at the end of the word and before the closing quotation mark

And this is stupid, yes
Yeah, the behavior you described is pretty awkward, but unfortunately that’s mostly because the search in Zimbra Collaboration Suite isn’t true regex anymore. In newer builds like Zimbra 8.8.15, it’s mostly limited to simple wildcard matching.

The * works more like a prefix/suffix wildcard handled by the search index (Lucene), so placement around quotes can get inconsistent depending on the field (from:, subject:, etc.). I’ve run into similar issues when trying to match subdomains.

A workaround that sometimes works more reliably is something like:

from:*bankplus.com

or narrowing it with:

from:*bankplus.com OR from:*bankplus.*

Not perfect, but it tends to behave more predictably than mixing quotes and wildcards. Unfortunately, proper regex support in the search bar hasn’t really come back in the newer versions.
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