Does creating a logical outlook search folder decrease search lag? - outlook-addin

Question

I create a logical search folder to contain all the emails with a specific category. I then pull those emails using FindItem+ParentFolderIds query. The speed of this FindItem query seems to be proportional to the total number of emails in the account and not how many emails in the logical search folder. Is this normal behavior?
Here is the query to create the search folder:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages"
xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types"
xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soap:Header>
<t:RequestServerVersion Version="Exchange2010" />
</soap:Header>
<soap:Body>
<m:CreateFolder>
<m:ParentFolderId>
<t:DistinguishedFolderId Id="searchfolders" />
</m:ParentFolderId>
<m:Folders>
<t:SearchFolder>
<t:DisplayName>MySearchFolder</t:DisplayName>
<t:PermissionSet>
<t:Permissions />
</t:PermissionSet>
<t:SearchParameters Traversal="Deep">
<t:Restriction>
<t:Contains ContainmentMode="FullString" ContainmentComparison="IgnoreCase">
<t:FieldURI FieldURI="item:Categories" />
<t:Constant Value="My_Category" />
</t:Contains>
</t:Restriction>
<t:BaseFolderIds>
<t:DistinguishedFolderId Id="root" />
</t:BaseFolderIds>
</t:SearchParameters>
</t:SearchFolder>
</m:Folders>
</m:CreateFolder>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
And here's the query to retrieve the emails from the search folder:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages" xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soap:Header>
<t:RequestServerVersion Version="Exchange2013_SP1" />
</soap:Header>
<soap:Body>
<m:FindItem Traversal="Shallow">
<m:ItemShape>
<t:BaseShape>AllProperties</t:BaseShape>
</m:ItemShape>
<m:IndexedPageItemView MaxEntriesReturned="1000" Offset="0" BasePoint="Beginning" />
<m:Restriction>
<t:IsEqualTo>
<t:FieldURI FieldURI="item:IsDraft" />
<t:FieldURIOrConstant>
<t:Constant Value="false" />
</t:FieldURIOrConstant>
</t:IsEqualTo>
</m:Restriction>
<m:ParentFolderIds>
<t:FolderId Id="<The_SEARCH_FOLDER_ID>" />
</m:ParentFolderIds>
</m:FindItem>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Answer 1

Keep in mind that items aren't actually "in" a search folder. A search folder is really just a persistent search result that you can treat like a folder. So those items are still all spread out across different folders in the mailbox.
When you query the search folder you're adding a second restriction (IsDraft = false) which is likely causing the results to be reevaluated.