Continuing the discussion from How do you search Your Private Messages?:
Searching messages exists now (I honestly don’t know since when). There’s no “in:messages” directive yet though.
But I think it’s a bit too prevalent. It currently shows up anywhere on your user page.
That includes the content filters for:
- All
- Topics
- Replies
- Likes given
- Bookmarks
All of which ought to trigger their own search filter. I also think the global one should be “Search my posts”, not “Search messages”. The global presence of “search messages” adds to the possible confusion that “when I do a normal search, does that include a search in my Messages?”.
Actually I think an even better UX solution for “search messages” would be to not have the option at all, but to override it completely when on the Messages page:
“Private messages do not feel private enough” is a valid UX concern that has come up before. PMs need to be in their own safe space. It also make sense to differentiate it because many normal search parameters like category: won’t work in messages.