A system and method are disclosed for producing a list of conversations as the result of a search query. Messages are received and associated with a conversation. Each of the conversations has a respective conversation identifier and includes one or more messages. Messages, and related message information, are indexed for text searching and information about the message is stored in a memory to associate the message to its respective conversation identifier. The index can be searched to identify one or more messages relevant to a search query. At least some of the conversations to which the one or more messages belong are identified and produced as the search result.