GMail Auto Search With Advance Search Operators

With ever increasing space in Gmail we do not bother to delete unwanted mails and also have thousands of mails lying in our Gmail cloud .Result: When we want to find a particular mail we take lots of time by not searching it effectively .Now you can search that mail quickly and effectively if you combine the GMail Search Autocomplete feature along with advance search operators .

If you do not know what Search Autocomplete is then it's a Gmail labs feature which will assist you by providing suggestions when you start typing on your search box for searching a mail .You can enable it at Settings->Labs->Search Autocomplete->Enable->Save Changes .

Let us start with some practical examples and see how it works .


Problem: You want to search mails sent to you by some one (say xyz@gmail.com) .
Solution:Type from: in your search box and by this time you will realise what search autocomplete does for you .Now you complete it with from:xyz@gmail.com and click on Search Mail to see the result for your self .

Problem:You want to search mails sent to you by some one (say xyz@gmail.com) and with a particular subject (say "weekend plan") .
Solution:Type from:xyz@gmail.com subject:"weekend plan" before pressing enter .

Note:quotes (" ") are used for exact search and this is case insensitive .

Problem:You want to search mails sent to you by more than two persons (say xyz@gmail.com and abc@gmail.com) with a subject as photo .
Solution:Use OR operator .Type from:xyz@gmail.com OR from:abc@gmail.com subject:photo before pressing enter .

Note:You can even use brackets to exclusively define your search condition.For e.g: (from:xyz@gmail.com OR from:abc@gmail.com) subject:photo will give you the same result as above.from:xyz@gmail.com OR (from:abc@gmail.com subject:photo) will give you a different result .

Now that you know how to use the advance search operators I'll present below some of the other search operators that you can use .

Problem:You want to search mails sent by you to tekunik@gmail.com .
Solution: to:tekunik@gmail.com .

Problem: You want to search the messages that contain the word "weekend plan" but do not contain movie .
Solution: "weekend plan" -movie .

Problem:You want to search messages from tekunik@gmail.com that has attachment .
Solution: from:tekunik@gmail.com has:attachment .

Problem:You want to Search messages anywhere in gmail excluding Spam and Trash for movie .
Solution: in:anywhere movie .

Problem:You want to search messages inside a particular folder (say inbox) sent by tekunik@gmail.com .
Solution: in:inbox from:tekunik@gmail.com .

Similarily you can use in:trash or in:spam to search for messages inside trash or spam .

Problem:You want to search messages that are sent by tekunik@gmail.com and unread .
Solution: from:tekunik@gmail.com is:unread .

Similarily you can also use is:starred and is:unread to find starred and unread messages .

Problem:You want to search messages with cc as tekunik@gmail.com sent by abc@gmail.com
Solution: from:abc@gmail.com cc:tekunik@gmail.com .
Similarily you can use bcc: .

Problem:You were on leave for some time and You want to search messages sent during that period by tekunik@gmail.com .
Solution: from:tekunik@gmail.com after:2009/05/16 before:2009/05/24 .
Note: Dates must be in yyyy/mm/dd format .

Problem: You want to search you chat messages with tekunik@gmail.com for movie .
Solution: is:chat tekunik@gmail.com movie .

Problem:You want to search messages with a particular label (say friend) sent by tekunik@gmail.com .
Solution: from:tekunik@gmail.com label:friend .

Problem:You want to search messages sent by tekunik@gmail.com that has an attachment with a .doc or .pdf file .
Solution: from:tekunik@gmail.com filename:(pdf OR doc) .

Note:Type "has" in the search box and see how Search Autocomplete helps you in suggesting file names.You can even search for files inside docs.google.com OR spreadsheets.google.com .

During all these options see how the Search Autocomplete helps you by providing various suggestions .

Now go and make use of your query knowledge to search that one important message you are looking for .