Find All Mails 'Sent To' or 'Received From'
We'll start with the basics and will address the most common queries used by Gmail users. Users often want to find all emails sent to a particular contact or received from a specific email address. You can easily filter out these emails through the following commands.#Find all emails received from matt.johnson
from:mat.johnson
#Find all emails sent to cynthia.berry
to:cynthia.berry
#Find all emails sent either to k.gross or received from p.lee
to:k.gross OR from:p.lee
Find Specific Words & Phrases in the Subject Line
This is yet another popular query used by lot of users who want to search emails containing select words or phrases in the subject line. You can perform this search in 3 different ways depending on your requirements. For example, you may want to find a single word, two words on different locations or a phrase in the subject line. Here are the commands to do that.#Find emails containing word 'hosting' in the subject line
subject:hosting
#Find emails containing words 'hi' or 'money' in the subject line
subject:hi OR subject:money
#Find emails containing phrase "Hosting details" in the subject line
subject:"Hosting details"
Filtering or Excluding Information
At times, you may want to search a specific piece of information but also want to include selective content where another piece of content is associated with the primary content you're looking for. For example, you're looking for emails containing 'hosting' keyword in the subject line but also want to exclude or filter out those email that also contains word 'discount' in the same subject line. Here's how you can do it.#Find 'hosting' but filter out 'discount' from search results
subject:hosting -subject:discount
Find Emails with Specific Labels
Labels in Gmail can be compared with folders found in other email services. They're perfect for organizing your archive to group similar kind of conversations in a single group. Gmail search lets you use the 'label' operator to find emails associated with a specific label.#Find all emails with label 'personal' and received from mary.kites
label:personal from:mary.kites
Find Emails With or Without Any Attachments
Attachment is an integral part of the modern day email communication. It's used more frequently while doing business communication. We often want to search emails with attachments sent by a particular person. You can do so very easily with the attachment operator.#Find all emails from joe.sanders with attachments
from:joe.sanders has:attachment
#Find all emails from sara.jones without any attachment
from:sara.jones -has:attachment
Find Emails with Specific Type of Attachments
The 'attachment' parameter discussed above simply filters out emails having attachment and is generic in nature. Suppose if you want to find an email containing file 'sample.txt' as an attachment or if you want to find all emails from a contact that only contains JPG image files as attachments. You can do so easily through the following commands.#Find all emails having file 'sample.txt' as attachment
filename:sample.txt
#Find all emails received from amanda.lee having JPG images as attachment
from:amanda.lee filename:jpg
Use Multiple Parameters with a Single Operator
So far, we've seen different operators that can be used to search content in Gmail. But each of the examples given above contains one parameter with each operator. At times, we want to supply multiple parameters to a single operator to broaden the scope of our query. For example, if you want to search for emails containing either PDF or DOC files as attachments, you can use the following query.#Find emails containing both PDF or DOC files as attachment
filename:{doc OR pdf}
Limit Search within Specific Folder/s
Every email service includes standard folders like inbox, spam, and trash. Gmail also has about half a dozen standard folders where emails are organized for better navigation and accessibility. Now you can limit the scope of your search to a specific folder through a special operator. For example, if you want to find all deleted emails received from a specific contact and are now in the trash folder, you can do that easily through the following command.#Find all deleted emails in trash received from bill.winkins
in:trash from:bill.winkins
#Find emails sent to john.garrett present anywhere in any of the standard folders
in:anywhere to:john.garrett
Search Emails with Different States
A typical email can be in a read, unread or starred state. We often want to limit our search based on the state of the email. For example, you may want to find all unread emails received from a specific content and that too which are not starred by you. Here's how you can do that.#Find unread emails from molly.baxter which are not starred by you
from:molly.baxter is:unread -is:starred
#Find all chats containing the word 'crossword' in it
is:chat crossword
Tame CC & BCC Search
Email carbon copies and blind carbon copies are life and blood of this communication medium. We often send CC & BCC emails to multiple recipients. You can use both these operators for finding these recipients very easily. Here are some of the examples.#Find all emails BCC-ed to franklin.rogers
bcc:franklin.rogers
#Find all emails CC-ed to priscilla or kevin.moore
cc:{priscilla OR kevin.moore}
Search Emails Based On Dates & Time Frames
This is yet another powerful feature of Gmail search that lets you filter out content on the basis of dates. You can either create an open-ended date search or you can create a time-frame based search. For example, you can search for emails sent before or after a specific date or you can search for emails sent between specific time periods.#Finds all emails sent between 21st November, 2008 to 16th June, 2009
after:2008/11/21 before:2009/06/16
#Find all emails sent to mathew.haydon before 23rd January, 2010
to:mathew.haydon before:2010/01/23
Find Emails from People in Your Google+ Circles
Now that Google+ is used by millions of Gmail users across the globe, you may want to search for email communications from a specific Google+ user. Fortunately, we have a special operator to find emails from a user who is in a specific circle created by you.#Find all emails from users in Google+ circle 'Probloggers'
circle:Probloggers
#Find emails from users in Google+ circle "Soccer players"
circle:"Soccer players"