Have you ever checked your Gmail inbox in search of a specific email, but took a lot of time? Gmail Search Operators help you find any email instantly by scanning your inbox for keywords.
There are around 1.5 billion active Gmail users worldwide, making it the most prominent online email service.
A Gmail inbox usually has thousands of emails that have been accumulated since the time of its inception. The purpose of Gmail search operators is to help you find the particular email you are looking for with the help of simple commands like keywords, dates, names of the sender or receiver, etc.
This feature helps separate your mail from the rest of the mails in the inbox. Let us try to understand the importance of Gmail search operators and their functioning.
You can use numerous search operators to speed up your search in your Gmail inbox. You can access unread emails, access starred emails, emails with attachments, etc.
Gmail also allows you to filter your search according to the recipient’s names or the sender, subject-wise, labels, keywords, symbols, dates, locations, etc.
How to use Advanced Gmail Search
There is a new feature in the Gmail app that allows you to search for emails by typing in their details. You can use the Advanced Gmail Search box by clicking on the right side of the search option.
A dropdown panel will appear on your screen, with fields for you to fill in. Those fields require details like the sender or receiver’s name, subject, dates, and keywords.
To use this Gmail search option, you should know the advanced search operators, which will help in speeding up your search. These Gmail email search operators simplify Google email search.
Advanced search in Gmail helps refine your search by using the search panel to begin looking for the specific email. For this feature, you need to know the Gmail advanced search operators or what they also call Boolean operators. They are the keywords, numbers, or symbols that help boost your search.
The idea is to fill in the fields in the advanced search box with keywords from the email you are looking for. For example, you are looking for an email sent to you from a certain “Tom Sawyer.” In the advanced search box, you should fill that name in the “from” field.
Similarly, you can also fill in the recipient’s name or a keyword from the subject matter.
What is a Gmail Filter Syntax?
Gmail filter syntax is used when you are unsure which emails to pull out from your inbox. There are times when you are confused with the sender’s or recipient’s names.
This is when you use Gmail filter syntax like “OR” or bracket symbols to help you find the list of potential emails. For more clarification, here is an example of Gmail filter syntax.
You type in the names of the senders and enclose them under brackets in the search bar, adding an “OR” in between the names of those senders.
Example – ([email protected] or [email protected])
How to search Gmail for emails?
It is easy to learn how to search Gmail inbox for emails. For email search Gmail has one of the most straightforward operating systems.
One must open Gmail and go to the inbox section. There, you will find a search box where you can use keywords like words from the subject of an email or the names of the senders/recipients, dates, etc., to find the particular email that you are looking for.
You can also exclude labels in Gmail search by using specific commands. In Gmail search exclude label feature is very convenient. If you don’t want your inbox to collect unnecessary emails from companies and newsletters, you can exclude them.
This can be done by shifting those emails to a to-do location. You can create new labels and enter the name of the types of emails you do not want clogging up your inbox. You are basically creating a folder for such emails by doing so.
These newsletters and the likes contain prevalent words in their emails, such as “subscribe” or “unsubscribe.” You can list these keywords in the filter, and Gmail will shift the emails containing those words to the newly created label.
This is how you exclude labels in Gmail. It helps you clean up your inbox and shifts them to another label or folder so that you can go through them whenever you get free time.
Find emails by using Gmail filter or search operators
Gmail filter or search operators allow you to find emails using various methods. You can use advanced search operators to do all these and save yourself ample time.
In most instances, we tend to remember the subjects of the emails being searched for. With that knowledge, you can go to the search bar and type Subject: and type in words you remember from the subject.
This will prompt the operator to pull out the emails that contain those words in the subject lines.
You can also Gmail search attachment using keywords or symbols in the emails containing attachments. This may not be possible with old emails, but the ones received in recent times can be found.
Use the command has:attachment, and then you can find the emails you are looking for. This operator will filter out all the emails except those containing attachments, making it easier to find emails.
Conclusion
The use of Gmail search operators helps the user to be more efficient in their time management by speeding up the process of finding emails. These search operators can either be keywords, symbols, or numbers.
Gmail also comes with an advanced search feature where a user has to open their Gmail and click the right side of the search button. This will result in a panel dropping down from the search bar.
In this panel, you will see fields you have you fill up to filter your inbox. After you fill in those details, the operators will scan for the emails with those exact details.
