Gmail The Lesser Known Search Operators For Advanced Search

Searching through lengthy list of mails in inbox is a tedious task. Even though Gmail provides an option “Show search options” with advanced fields to narrow down the search, sometimes your requirements are just too complex or unique. Here is a list of some special search keywords which will enable you even to find a needle in a haystack. Combine these together and you are the master of your inbox.

1. Enlisting Messages Having Attachments: If you want to search through the entire list of mails to view all the mails having attachments, you need to use the syntax “has:attachment“. Type the syntax in the search box and all the mails with attachments will be enlisted. One thing to note here is that Gmail considers mails with videos, animations or inline-images as those having attachments.
2. Search Mails By Name/Type Of Files: Gmail allows you to refine the search for the attached files as well. You can search a file either by name or by type. Use the synatax “filename:the name of my file” or “filename:pdf“. You can mention the name of the file to be searched for a specific search or enter the extension of file to enlist the collection of emails containing those files.
3. View Mails In A Particular Label: Sometimes you need to narrow down your search to a particular folder/label. In this case you can use “in:name_of_label” where the name_of_label can be replaced by inbox, trash, spam, anywhere, sent, drafts and so on.
4. Narrow Your Search Depending On The Status Of Mails: The list of mails can be categorized on the basis of status as well. Some of the states to mention are read, unread, starred, important (when you enable priority inbox), muted and chat. To view the list of mails in any such state you can use “is:read” or “is:starred“.
5. Search By Certain Period Of Time: If you want to enlist only those messages which you received in a certain period of time, you can frame your search query to something like this “after:2010/01/01 before:2010/01/31“. Simply make use of after/before to specify the time period.
6. Mix And Match Queries: Sometimes requirements state your willingness to enlist messages across status, file types, attachments and so. Then you can mix your queries and put them the desired way. Some of the examples of such mix and match queries are: “from:alisha -filename:jpg” (a minus acts as a negating operator and removes the mails falling under the search operator), “subject:books filename:pdf“, “has:attachment filename:Java Refresher“.

Note: All syntax to be used without quotes.

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