diff --git a/app/src/Repository/MsgrcptSearchRepository.php b/app/src/Repository/MsgrcptSearchRepository.php
index c8a2a047..ebc03a0a 100644
--- a/app/src/Repository/MsgrcptSearchRepository.php
+++ b/app/src/Repository/MsgrcptSearchRepository.php
@@ -278,15 +278,26 @@ private function addRecipientsCondition(QueryBuilder $queryBuilder, User $user):
 
     private function addSearchKeyCondition(QueryBuilder $queryBuilder, string $searchKey): void
     {
-        $potentialEmails = Email::extractEmailsFromText($searchKey);
-        $foundUserEmails = $this->userRepository->searchUsersByEmails($potentialEmails);
+        $potentialEmails = Email::extractEmailsFromText($searchKey, looseMode: true);
+        $foundUserEmails = $this->userRepository->searchEmails($potentialEmails);
         $allUserEmails = array_unique($foundUserEmails);
 
+        // Get the list of "potential emails" that matched a real email in the
+        // database to exclude them from the boolean search below.
+        $termsToExclude = [];
+        foreach ($potentialEmails as $potentialEmail) {
+            foreach ($allUserEmails as $email) {
+                if (str_contains($email, $potentialEmail)) {
+                    $termsToExclude[] = $potentialEmail;
+                }
+            }
+        }
+
         // Create the boolean search string by excluding the terms that matched
         // a user's email. The emails will be used to search against the
         // recipient or the sender emails, while the other terms will be used
         // to perform a boolean search against subject, from and the message's id.
-        $booleanSearch = Search::textToMariadbBooleanSearch($searchKey, excludeTerms: $allUserEmails);
+        $booleanSearch = Search::textToMariadbBooleanSearch($searchKey, excludeTerms: $termsToExclude);
 
         // Add the boolean search condition.
         if ($booleanSearch) {
diff --git a/app/src/Repository/UserRepository.php b/app/src/Repository/UserRepository.php
index 69e7ab8c..90326f7b 100644
--- a/app/src/Repository/UserRepository.php
+++ b/app/src/Repository/UserRepository.php
@@ -305,17 +305,23 @@ public function getUsersWithRoleAndMessageCounts(User $user, ?Domain $domain = n
      * @param string[] $emails
      * @return string[]
      */
-    public function searchUsersByEmails(array $emails): array
+    public function searchEmails(array $emails): array
     {
         if (empty($emails)) {
             return [];
         }
 
         $queryBuilder = $this->createQueryBuilder('u');
-        $queryBuilder->select('u.email')
-                ->where("u.email IN (:emails) and u.roles is not null")
-                ->setParameter('emails', $emails);
+        $queryBuilder->select('u.email');
+        $queryBuilder->where("u.roles is not null");
 
+        $expr = new Expr\Orx();
+        foreach ($emails as $key => $email) {
+            $expr->add("u.email LIKE :email{$key}");
+            $queryBuilder->setParameter("email{$key}", "%{$email}%");
+        }
+
+        $queryBuilder->andWhere($expr);
 
         return $queryBuilder->getQuery()->getSingleColumnResult();
     }
diff --git a/app/src/Util/Email.php b/app/src/Util/Email.php
index 1bdbfd1d..c46d2cde 100644
--- a/app/src/Util/Email.php
+++ b/app/src/Util/Email.php
@@ -7,9 +7,13 @@ class Email
     /**
      * Return whether the email address is valid or not
      */
-    public static function validate(string $email): bool
+    public static function validate(string $email, bool $looseMode = false): bool
     {
-        return filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL) !== false;
+        if ($looseMode) {
+            return str_contains($email, '@');
+        } else {
+            return filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL) !== false;
+        }
     }
 
     /**
@@ -17,13 +21,13 @@ public static function validate(string $email): bool
      *
      * @return string[]
      */
-    public static function extractEmailsFromText(string $text): array
+    public static function extractEmailsFromText(string $text, bool $looseMode = false): array
     {
         $terms = preg_split('/\s+/', trim($text), -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY) ?: [];
 
         $emails = [];
         foreach ($terms as $term) {
-            if (self::validate($term)) {
+            if (self::validate($term, $looseMode)) {
                 $emails[] = $term;
             }
         }
diff --git a/app/src/Util/Search.php b/app/src/Util/Search.php
index 0a47276b..546b68d9 100644
--- a/app/src/Util/Search.php
+++ b/app/src/Util/Search.php
@@ -23,10 +23,13 @@ public static function textToMariadbBooleanSearch(string $text, array $excludeTe
         });
 
         // Sanitize the terms to perform a boolean search.
-        $safeTerms = array_map(static function ($term) {
-            $safe = preg_replace('/[+\-><()~*"@]+/', ' ', $term);
-            return trim($safe ?: '');
-        }, $terms);
+        $safeTerms = [];
+        foreach ($terms as $term) {
+            $safeTerm = preg_replace('/[+\-><()~*"@\.]+/', ' ', $term);
+            $safeTerm = trim($safeTerm ?: '');
+            $explodedSafeTerm = explode(' ', $safeTerm);
+            $safeTerms = array_merge($safeTerms, $explodedSafeTerm);
+        }
 
         // Remove stop words and words with less than 3 chars because searching
         // for them will return no results (as they are not indexed by MariaDB).