How To Find Any Message In Gmail

If you are the kind of person who meticulously sorts and organizes your Gmail, applies labels consistently and insightfully, and efficiently deletes superfluous emails,  then this post is not for you.

However, if you're more like me, and you just archive everything to get it out of your inbox, then this may save you a lot of time and energy.

If you're trying to find an old email, and you type a search term in to Gmail's search field (at the top of your inbox), Gmail spews back thousands of hits -- anything that contains the text in any possible field.

For example, if I'm searching for an email from Sheryl Castro, and type in her email address, I get back not only all the email that she's sent me, but also all the email that I've sent her, all the email that we've both been recipients of  -- like bell schedule changes and general announcements -- and all the email in which I merely merely mention her name.

However, there's a way to avoid all that trouble:  use Google's search operators.


Google search operators are terms you can type into the search field that limit or direct the search.

Here are some really useful ones.  Google provides a full list online here.     

from:	Used to specify a sender	Example: from:andrea Meaning: All messages that were sent to you from Andrea
to:	Used to specify a recipient	Example: to:david Meaning: All messages that were sent to David (by you or someone else)
subject:	Search for words in the subject line	Example: subject:dinner Meaning: Messages that have the word "dinner" in the subject
filename:	Search for an attachment by name or type	Example: filename:physicshomework.txt Meaning: Messages with an attachment named "physicshomework.txt"
after: before:	Search for messages sent during a certain period of time* *Dates must be in yyyy/mm/dd format.	Example: after:2004/04/16 before:2004/04/18  Meaning: Messages sent between April 16, 2004 and April 18, 2004.* *More precisely: Messages sent after 12:00 AM (or 00:00) April 16, 2004 and before April 18, 2004.

Try them out -- they'll save you a lot of time searching.

And you can continue to just archive the heck out of everything -- you'll find it later if you need it.