OK … so apparently, I can do an *exact* search in @thunderbird by pressing cmd+shift+F on my Mac.

But isn't there a better way?

Because all I really want is to configure #Thunderbird's standard search so it returns only exact results in the first place.

If I look for the search term 'EARLI', I am not interested in e-mails containing 'early'. Because I can type and I know exactly what I'm looking for:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European…