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Searching Your Inbox

As noted previously, Gmail organization is based on Google's popular search paradigm. That is, to find a specific message in your crowded inbox, you have to search for it.

Tip

You can view the messages in the Trash bin by clicking the Trash link. You can then undelete any message by checking it and then clicking the Move to Inbox button.


Basic Search

For most users, Gmail's basic search feature will quickly and easily find the messages you're looking for. All you have to do is follow these steps:

1.
Enter one or more keywords into the search box at the top of any Gmail page.

2.
Click the Search Mail button.

Gmail now returns a search results page, like the one shown in Figure 21.13. This page lists messages in which the queried keywords appear anywhere in the messagein the subject line, in the message text, or in the sender or recipient lists. Click a message to read it.

Figure 21.13. Viewing the results of a Gmail search.


Caution

Unlike Google's web search, Gmail search doesn't offer automatic stemmingwhich means it doesn't recognize matches to partial strings, plurals, misspellings, and the like. If you search for dog, Gmail won't recognize dogs, dogged, or doggy.


Searching with Search Options

The more messages in your inbox, the more you'll need to fine-tune your mail searches. Fortunately, Gmail makes this easy with a simple checkbox interface. When you click the Show Search Options link (beside the search box), the top of the Gmail page expands, as shown in Figure 21.14. From here, you can search according to the parameters listed in Table 21.1:

Figure 21.14. Fine-tuning your search with Gmail Search Options.


Table 21.1. Gmail Search Options

Search Option

Description

From:

Searches within the sender (From:) field only

To:

Searches within the recipient (To:) field only

Subject

Searches within the message subject line only

Search

Pull down to search within All Mail (including archived messages), Inbox, Starred, Chats, Sent Mail, Drafts, Spam, Trash, All Spam & Trash, Read Mail, or Unread Mail

Has the words

Searches for messages that contain all the words listed

Doesn't have

Searches for messages that don't contain the words listed

Has attachment

Limits searches to messages with files attached

Date within

Narrows searches to a specific timeframe (1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 6 months, 1 year) of the specified date


Just enter your keywords into the box(es) next to the criteria you want, and then click the Search Mail button.

Searching with Advanced Operators

If you prefer to do your searching from the search box only, Gmail offers a slew of advanced search operators you can employ. These operators work just like the regular search operators we discussed in Chapter 2, "Searching the Web," except they're specialized for the task of email searching.

Table 21.2 details the available Gmail search operators.

Table 21.2. Gmail Advanced Search Operators

Search Operator

Description

Example

from:

Searches for messages from a specific sender

from:sherry or from:sherry@example.net

to:

Searches for messages sent to a specific recipient

from:mike or from:mike@gmail.com

subject:

Searches for words contained in the message subject line

subject:meeting

OR

Searches for messages containing one or another word (OR must be in all caps)

sherry OR mike

-

Excludes messages that contain a specific word

-meeting

label:

Searches for messages by label

label:friends

has:attachment

Searches only for messages with files attached

has:attachment

filename:

Searches for attachment by name or filetype

filename:sherry.jpg or filename:pdf

" "

Searches for an exact phrase

"friday meeting"

()

Used to group words in a query

from:(sherry OR mike) or subject:(dinner movie)

in:location

Searches for messages in specific areas of your account: anywhere, inbox, trash, spam

in:anywhere

is:state

Searches for messages that are read, unread, or starred

is:unread

cc:

Searches for recipients in the cc: field

cc:melinda

bcc:

Searches for recipients in the bcc: field

bcc:oliver

after:year/month/day

Searches for messages sent after a given date

after:2006/06/15

before:year/month/day

Searches for messages sent before a given date

before:2006/09/01


Obviously, you can combine any or all of these operators. For example, to search within a certain date range, combine the after: and before: operators, like this: after:2006/06/15 before:2006/09/01. To search for unread messages from a certain person, enter this query: from:gary is:unread. And so on.

Note

When you use the in:anywhere operator, it searches for messages anywhere in your account except in Spam or Trash.



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