Systems and methods for scoping a search. When a content index for electronic data is built, one or more scope restrictions are included in the content index. The scope restriction may be, for example, a root folder identifier, a mailbox identifier, or a URL. Because the scope restriction is included in the content index random access of the property store to determine the scope is avoided. Rather, the scope restriction is implicitly added to a search that uses the content index. By including a scope restriction in the search query, the search results identified from the content index are limited to results that match the scope restriction. Advantageously, the effect of including the scope restriction in the search is ignored if the search results are relatively small or when including the scope restriction provides little benefit.