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To find a message, type one or more keywords into the "Search mail" box in the mail toolbar and hit enter. By default, all folders except shared folders, Spam and Trash will be searched. If you are currently in a shared folder, Spam or Trash, then just that folder will be searched instead.
We also provide convenience filters in the folder view: "All mail", "Unread", "Personal", "Notifications", "Mailing lists".
If you're having trouble finding what you're looking for, you can create a more precise search using our advanced search builder:
This allows you to look for the keywords in specific places (for example the To
or Subject
fields), set the date range you want to search and specify whether the email must be unread or pinned, or have a particular type of attachment.
After performing a search, the search term appears in the sidebar on the left of the screen. Click the "Save" button next to the search term to save it for quick reuse.
Search looks in all folders by default (except shared folders, Spam and Trash). Use Alt+Enter to limit to the current folder only, or Shift+Enter to force normal global search on all folders (except shared folders, Spam and Trash)
You can build detailed searches directly in the mail search box, by combining options.
in:<foldername>
By default, all folders will be searched except Spam and Trash. You can include these folders as well by adding in:*
to your search. You can also use the in
keyword to restrict your search to specific folders, e.g. in:Inbox OR in:Drafts
. To specify a subfolder when using the in
keyword, use a .
to separate the subfolder's name from the parent folder, e.g. in:"Mailing Lists.Hiking"
.
from:<phrase>
to:<phrase>
(searches To
, Cc
and Bcc
)subject:<phrase>
body:<phrase>
list:<phrase>
(searches the List-Id
header)header:<headername>:<phrase>
Phrases are matched using stemming: all different forms of the same word match to take into account plurals (fox, foxes) and tenses (fish, fishing, fished). This means, for example, a search for "bus" will match "buses" but not "business".
If you want to disable stemming and search for an exact word or phrase, surround it in quotes (either '
or "
). For example: "buses"
or from:"Joe Bloggs"
or subject:'string with "double" quotes'
, but not buses
or from:Joe Bloggs
or subject:"must end with same'
. If you want to search for quotes or a backslash \
, put a backslash before the character: use \"
, \'
and \\
.
You can also search for any word that matches a prefix by putting an asterisk (*
) on the end, e.g. bus*
would match "buses", "business", "bust" etc.
since|after|newer:<date>
before|older:<date>
date:<date>
A date can be either absolute (e.g. date:"30 sep 2010"
) or relative (e.g. date:"2 weeks ago"
). Most forms of writing a date are accepted. It also supports integers with units, d
(day), w
(week), m
(month) or y
(year). date:2w
is the same as date:"2 weeks ago"
.
smaller|maxsize:<size>
bigger|larger|minsize:<size>
A size is specified in bytes, with an optional suffix k
, m
, or g
, e.g. larger:10m
.
has|is:<boolean>
filetype:image|document|spreadsheet|presentation|pdf
flag:<flag name>
The following states can be specified with the has
or is
keyword:
read
or seen
unread
or unseen
pinned
or flagged
unpinned
or unflagged
replied
or answered
unreplied
or unanswered
attachment
or hasatt
noattachment
or hasnoatt
or noatt
draft
undraft
For backwards compatibility, we also support writing a term in UPPERCASE without the has
or in
keyword prefix. For example, the searches UNSEEN HASATT
or is:unread has:attachment
are the same, and will both show all unread messages with attachments.
The filetype keyword finds emails with attachments of the given type. It does this by looking at the MIME type of the attachments. Some systems may generate emails with attachments with the wrong or "missing" MIME types, in which case the search may fail to find the expected emails.
Operators to join search terms must be uppercase.
AND
— doesn't do anything, since this is the default.OR
— e.g. from:rob OR from:richard
.NOT
— applies to the term it comes before. For example, since:"1 week ago" from:rob NOT subject:"new web interface"
would find any messages from Rob in the last week that are not about the "new web interface".()
— grouping, e.g. (from:rob subject:"new web interface") OR subject:urgent
. This finds any mail from Rob with "new web interface" in the subject line, as well as mail from anyone with the subject "urgent".msgid:<id>
If you know the message id you are searching for, you can use the msgid
operator to find it directly.