Posting a small collection of Gmail search tips & tricks which i recently summed up for personal use. I hope you find it useful.
Gmail search tips and tricks
Exact search by enclosing phrase or word within “”(quotes). For example:
“new document” will search for exact phrase “new document”You can search messages by subject. To search a message with subject “facebook” you do:
subject: facebookSearching emails received from someone:
from:senders_address_here@domain_name.comTo find emails sent to someone, search:
to:to_address_here@domain_name.com
or
deliveredto:to_address_here@domain_name.comTo find emails sent to someone as carbon copy(cc), search:
cc:to_address_here@domain_name.comTo find emails send to someone as blind carbon copy(bcc), search:
bcc:to_address_here@domain_name.com (works on outgoing emails only)Searching all message prior to a particular date:
before:2010/01/01 (accepts date in yyyy/mm/dd)Searching all message after a particular date:
after:2010/01/01 (accepts date in yyyy/mm/dd)has: and filename: to find messages with attachments.
Searching all emails with attachments:
has:attachmentSearching all emails with at least one “doc” file attached:
filename:docMore advanced file attachment search which performs search for any of pdf, doc, xls, ppt, a google doc or a google spreadsheet:
filename:(pdf OR doc OR xls OR ppt) OR docs.google.com OR spreadsheets.google.comin:
Possible values are inbox, trash, spam and anywhereSearching emails in inbox:
in:inboxSearching emails in trash:
in:trashSearching emails in spam:
in:spam filename:jpgSearching emails located anywhere:
in:anywhere “devarticles”In works with important, starred and muted as well. Also you can use in: to search within a label. For example, in:todo will work equally well where “todo” is the name of label i have created.
is:
Possible values are starred, read, unread, chat, muted, importantSearching starred with attachment
is:starred has:attachmentSearching read after a particular date and having a specific word in it:
is:read after:2011/03/31 “devarticles”Searching after a particular date:
is:unread after:2011/03/31 “devarticles”Searching after a particular date:
is:unread after:2011/03/31Searching for something in chat transcriptSearching for words “cpanel” and/or “ftp” within chat
cpanel ftp is:chatlabel: You can use label:lablename to search messages with a particular label. You can enter default Gmail labels as well as your custom created label in place of labelname. For example:
Searching all message in inbox (Gmail label) using lable: search
label:inboxSearching all message in “Richard” (custom label) using lable: search
label:RichardYou can use hyphen “-” to skip a particular word from the search.Search emails with word sports but not baseball in its body
sports –baseball (search all emails containing word sports but not baseball)Search emails with word odesk but not notification in its subject:
subject: odesk -notificationNote that excluded word i.e. notification is followed by “-” and there is no space between hyphen(-) and notification.
There is a “Show search options” link to the right side of gmail search box. You can use this box to perform a custom search.There is also “Create a filter” link to the right side of search box. You can use this box to create filters which allow Gmail to manage your emails for you. Here is a nice article explaining the use of Gmail filters.
Simplest of simplest, enter keyword, phrase, from email address, to email addres into the search box and hit “Search Mail” button. It will return results related to the input :)
