Google introduce Advanced Gmail Search Operators

If you have been using Outlook or other desktop email client, you might have missed the feature called advance search operator. In our earlier article, we showed you about how you can search mails or messages in Outlook using the simple search operator command. Sometimes it becomes really very difficult to search some specific mail in your inbox unless you don’t have the search operators command. Finally, Gmail comes with an advanced search functionality where in, they have added many Gmail search operators. Google recently announced about its new advance search operator in Gmail where in you can search mail by their size, date, sender name, attachment, label and much more.

Gmail Search operators are simple query words or symbols that perform some special search function in Gmail. These operators allow you to find what you’re looking for quickly and accurately

Below are some Gmail Search Operators explained:

Searching by Size:

If you are wondering about your email with gigantic size or want to search any specific mail with specific size, then try using the below search operator syntax to search in Gmail.

size:5m

Size operator will search for messages larger than the specified size. If you search in Gmail by typing size:5m or size:5000000 (In bytes), this will search message with size greater than 5 megabytes (MB)

larger:5M

Larger Operator is similar to size. The only difference is that it allows abbreviation like M and K where in M indicates MB and K indicates KB. If you search in Gmail typing “larger:5M”, this will search message with size greater than 5 megabytes (MB). If you try typing “larger:400K”, this will search messages with size greater than 400KB. Alternative to Larger, you can also try smaller_than and larger_than search operators.

Search by Time or period:

These operators will let you search your recent or old messages. These operators comes very handy while searching for messages older than a year or month or days.

older_than:5m

older_than Operator will search for messages older than specific time or dates using d, m, y where in d indicates the day, m indicates the month, and y indicates the year. “older_than:5m” will search messages, which are older than five months. If we type “older_than:5y” will search messages older than five years.

newer_than:5m

Similar to older_than, newer_than will search messages newer than the specified year, month or day.

Search by Sender Name:

In case at any point, you want to search messages with a specific name then below command will come very handy.

from:justin

From operator command is a simple command which will search specific sender from messages received. When we type “from:justin” operator in Gmail search, this will search all your messages which was sent from the name Justin.

Search by Attachment:

If you want to search messages having some attachment, then try the below search operator.

has:attachment

If you search typing “has:attachment”, this will search messages with attachment. You can also combine two or more commands like  “from:justin has:attachment”, this will search messages with the name of Justin containing attachment.

Search by keyword:

Many times it happens that we want to search for particular word or keyword. However, while searching with such keyword in Gmail it ends up displaying too many result, which are not the exact match of the search keyword.

+(Download) Syntax: + (plus sign)

+ (plus sign) search operator is a simple search command which will search specified keyword or words from messages. If you type “+(Download)” in Gmail search, this will search messages with keyword Download and not Downloads. It will only show messages that matches the search term exactly. If you search by typing “+(windows)”, this will search messages containing the search term windows

There are plenty of more search operators available, check here for more Gmail search operators.