Ask Dave Taylor
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • YouTube Videos
  • Top Categories
  • Subscribe via Email
  • Ask A Question
  • Meet Dave
  • Home
  • Google, Chrome & Gmail Help
  • Top 7 Gmail Power Searches You Should Know

Top 7 Gmail Power Searches You Should Know

November 30, 2022 / Dave Taylor / Google, Chrome & Gmail Help / No Comments

I have an enormous email archive in my Gmail account but can never find specific archived messages without looking through tons of search results on a search. What are the key Gmail search features I should try that could help?

Google’s incredibly popular Gmail service has been online long enough now that even modest email correspondents find that their archives contain thousands or tens of thousands of emails. I’m a pretty hardcore email user and would guess that my archive of messages is well over 100,000, if not an order of magnitude larger. In other words, a whole lotta email!

Shortcuts: 1. Quotes | 2. Subjects | 3. Senders | 4. Recipients | 5. Attachments | 6. Age | 7. Size

While Google has always encouraged users to archive everything and trust the database and data search features, that only works if you spend the time to learn how to do power searches and more sophisticated searches in Gmail. If you’re still just typing in a few words, like someone’s name, then it’s no wonder that your search results are overwhelming!

1. GMAIL: QUOTES AND “+” / “-“

At the most basic, it’s key to remember that you can refine a search once done, so if you type in a query and get thousands of results, add a word or phrase to narrow things down. Handy to know is that quotes force adjacency, so “dave taylor” is a very different search than dave taylor because the latter would also match a message wherein you mention dave smith and larry taylor, while the quoted search will not.

Similarly, if you have a lot of ambiguity in your search, the results might be all over the place. Add words that must be in the search (Gmail can search for synonyms too, which can be surprising) by prefacing the word or phrase with a “+” symbol. Want to have a stop word that, if present, makes it an automatic negative match? use the “-” symbol to preface the word or phrase. For example +ford mustang -horse will search for mustang and require the word ford to be present but exclude any that also contain the word horse.

Those two can really help, but there are what’s known as search predicates, special words that offer far more power and capabilities. Let’s check ’em out…

2. SEARCH JUST EMAIL SUBJECT LINES

Most people do a pretty good job of summarizing the purpose of a message in the subject line, particularly in business settings. It should be no surprise then that you can search for words or phrases that appear specifically in that subject line. This is done with the subject: predicate:

gmail power search - in subject

Notice that “subject:las” has no space and includes a colon; you must follow that format exactly for search predicates to work. This would be better structured as subject:”las vegas” to ensure both words are found in the subject, bu notice the results are pretty good (except #2, which has “las vegas” in the message body. Sometimes Gmail just does its own thing, frustratingly)

3. SEARCH FOR SENDERS

Another power search move in Gmail is to search for messages based on the sender. Since it’s so good at autocomplete, you can just begin to enter an email address or you can use a name. If I want to find email messages from Hilton Hotels – more specifically “hilton.com” – here’s how I’d do that with the from: predicate:

gmail power search - sender from

Notice that it matches both discussion threads where there’s more than one message and individual messages are automatically generated after I’ve stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn, which I apparently do with some frequency!

4. SEARCH BY INTENDED RECIPIENT

The opposite of searching by sender is to search your Gmail archive for messages that you sent to someone. Email recipient searches can be easily done by using the “to:” predicate. For example, email that I’ve sent to my friend Lamar can be found with to:lamar, as shown:

gmail power search - search recipient to to:

Notice that it’s also matched Lamar’s entry in my Contacts too, with his email address shown (I’ve redacted it for his privacy). Since Gmail is great at autocompletion, the search suggests his email address as I type too, though you can also search for a subset or just the first portion of an email address too.

While we’re looking at this result, did you see that Gmail suggests additional criteria for the search? “Has attachment”, “Last 7 days”, and “From me” are all suggestions based on Gmail profiling my search history and are easily added to the search with a single click.

5. SEARCH BY ATTACHMENT

In fact, you can click on “Has attachment” or you can just type in has:attachment. But you can search for a few more possible additions and, most importantly, you can — and should! — combine search terms to create a more sophisticated search. Like this: to:lamar has:attachment has:youtube…

gmail power search - to, has attachment, has youtube link

This is a pretty sophisticated search that only finds four matches across five years of archived email: to match, a message must have “lamar” in the recipient list, have an attachment of any sort, and include a link to a YouTube video. I could also add further terms too, like “Axis & Allies” (quoted) to identify that message I sent years and years ago about playing Axis & Allies and Zombies.

6. SEARCH BY THE AGE OF THE EMAIL

Another useful search is to constrain the results to be older – or newer – than a specific period. Perhaps I want to search for email related to the World Cup, but don’t want to see everything I’ve received in the last month or two. This is easily done with the older_than: predicate, as shown:

gmail power search - world cup older than 90d

Notice that the search is “world cup” older_than:90d which only matches messages that are at least 91 days ago and include the exact phrase “world cup”. You can also search for newer_than: if you want to perform the opposite search, just for messages younger than a specified age. This can be particularly helpful if you get a lot of messages on a subject; you can constrain your search to just being in the last few weeks.

7. SEARCH BY MESSAGE SIZE

Finally, if you’re like many people, you probably have a small number of enormous email messages in your archive that are consuming a lot of your storage space. Eventually, you can indeed run out of space, something that happened to me about two years ago on Gmail. Find those offenders by searching with the predicate larger: followed by a size, typically in megabytes. For example, to search for email messages that are larger than 30MB, I can use this query:

gmail power search - larger than search by size

Unless someone is incredibly long-winded, these are going to be messages that have enormous attachments. Since there’s no easy way to delete attachments from email, a typical step at this point is to just delete these huge messages and be done with it.

There are more search predicates and more ways you can combine things to create sophisticated searches, and Google has a great tutorial on Gmail Power Searches you can read. Try the ones highlighted in this article, however, and you’ll be well on your way to taming that enormous archive!

Pro Tip: I’ve written quite a bit about Gmail and Google services. Please check out my Gmail help library for lots more tutorials while you’re visiting!

About the Author: Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since the early days of the Internet. Author of over 20 technical books, he runs the popular AskDaveTaylor.com tech help site. You can also find his gadget reviews on YouTube and chat with him on Twitter as @DaveTaylor.

Let’s Stay In Touch!

Never miss a single article, review or tutorial here on AskDaveTaylor, sign up for my fun weekly newsletter!
Name: 
Your email address:*
Please enter all required fields
Correct invalid entries
No spam, ever. Promise. Powered by FeedBlitz
Please choose a color:
Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!
gmail power search, gmail search

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search

Recent Posts

  • How to Check Energy Recommendations on your Windows Laptop
  • How Do I Customize New Tab Windows in Safari for Mac?
  • Can AI-Generated ChatGPT Text Be Accurately Identified?
  • How to Perform a Microsoft Account Security Audit and Checkup
  • How Can I Customize My Linux Dock / Taskbar?

On Our YouTube Channel

How to: Replace a Switchbot Door Sensor Battery

EMEET Luna vs INNOTRIK Studio Bluetooth Speakerphones -- DEMOS & REVIEW

Categories

  • AdSense, AdWords, and PPC Help (106)
  • Amazon, eBay, and Online Shopping Help (163)
  • Android Help (226)
  • Apple iPad Help (147)
  • Apple Watch Help (53)
  • Articles, Tutorials, and Reviews (346)
  • Auto Tech Help (15)
  • Business Advice (200)
  • ChromeOS Help (31)
  • Computer & Internet Basics (778)
  • d) None of the Above (166)
  • Facebook Help (383)
  • Google, Chrome & Gmail Help (188)
  • HTML & Web Page Design (247)
  • Instagram Help (49)
  • iPhone & iOS Help (623)
  • iPod & MP3 Player Help (173)
  • Kindle & Nook Help (99)
  • LinkedIn Help (88)
  • Linux Help (173)
  • Linux Shell Script Programming (89)
  • Mac & MacOS Help (911)
  • Most Popular (16)
  • Outlook & Office 365 Help (33)
  • PayPal Help (68)
  • Pinterest Help (54)
  • Reddit Help (19)
  • SEO & Marketing (82)
  • Spam, Scams & Security (95)
  • Trade Show News & Updates (23)
  • Twitter Help (220)
  • Video Game Tips (66)
  • Web Site Traffic Tips (62)
  • Windows PC Help (947)
  • Wordpress Help (206)
  • Writing and Publishing (72)
  • YouTube Help (47)
  • YouTube Video Reviews (159)
  • Zoom, Skype & Video Chat Help (62)

Archives

Social Connections:

Ask Dave Taylor


Follow Me on Pinterest
Follow me on Twitter
Follow me on LinkedIn
Follow me on Instagram


AskDaveTaylor on Facebook



microsoft insider mvp


This web site is for the purpose of disseminating information for educational purposes, free of charge, for the benefit of all visitors. We take great care to provide quality information. However, we do not guarantee, and accept no legal liability whatsoever arising from or connected to, the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of any material contained on this site or on any linked site. Further, please note that by submitting a question or comment you're agreeing to our terms of service, which are: you relinquish any subsequent rights of ownership to your material by submitting it on this site. Our lawyer says "Thanks for your cooperation."
© 2023 by Dave Taylor. "Ask Dave Taylor®" is a registered trademark of Intuitive Systems, LLC.
Privacy Policy - Terms and Conditions - Accessibility Policy