11. The search apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the email search mode interface and the file search mode interface are alternatively viewable within a single search interface configured for display on a display device.
8. A search apparatus, comprising: a computer readable storage medium storing software modules for execution by the search apparatus, the software modules comprising: an interface module configured to selectively generate a plurality of user selectable search mode interfaces having attribute fields, including at least: an email search mode interface having email-specific attribute search fields including one or more of a date field, a from field, and a sender field; a file search mode interface having file-specific attribute search fields including one or more of a file name field, a file type field, a date field, a file size field, and a path field; an email attachment search mode interface including one or more of a name field, a date field, a size field, and an extension field; wherein each of the email search mode interface, the file search mode interface, and the email attachment search mode interface further comprises a list pane, used to display a list of search result items, and a view pane, used to display the contents of a selected search result item; an index module configured to generate at least a first index, including one or more indexes of emails and files; one or more memories configured to store the first index, including one or more indexes of emails and files; and a search module configured to perform incremental searching of the first index as the user enters characters into at least a first attribute search field such that a list of search results is updated with one or more of matching emails and matching files after each character of one or more search strings is received from a user in one of the attribute search fields.