How to search Gmail by using Operators

It might be very difficult to search for an particular email in your inbox one by one.It can be time consuming as well it is frustrating also.For avoiding this usually all email service providers like Gmail,Yahoo etc. provides the search bar.By the help of which you can find the desired email in your account.

But Gmail provides the facility to use the search bar by the help of OPERATORS which makes it very easy to search for an email in your account.Some of them are


1: from: This operator is used to specify the sender Example - from:steve Meaning - Messages from steve

2:to: Used to specify a recipient Example - to:david Meaning - All messages that were sent to David (by you or someone else)

3: subject: Search for words in the subject line Example - subject:dinner Meaning - Messages that have the word "dinner" in the subject

4: OR :Search for messages matching term A or term B (OR must all be in capitals ) Example - from:amy OR from:david Meaning - Messages from Amy or from David


5: - (hyphen): Used to exclude messages from your search Example - dinner -film
Meaning - Messages that contain the word "dinner" but do not contain the word "film"

6:label: Search for messages by label (There is not a search operator for unlabelled messages) Example - from:amy label:friends Meaning - Messages from Amy that have the label "friends"
Example - from:david label:my-family Meaning - Messages from David that have the label "My Family"

7: has:attachment: Search for messages with an attachment Example - from:david has:attachment Meaning - Messages from David that have an attachment

8: filename: Search for an attachment by name or type Example - filename:physicshomework.txt Meaning - Messages with an attachment named "physicshomework.txt" Example - label:work filename:pdf Meaning - Messages labelled "work" that also have a PDF file as an attachment

9: " "(quotes):Used to search for an exact phrase (Capitalisation isn't taken into consideration)
Example - "I'm feeling lucky" Meaning - Messages containing the phrase "I'm feeling lucky" or "I'm feeling lucky" Example - subject:"dinner and a film" Meaning - Messages containing the phrase "dinner and a film" in the subject

10: ( ) :Used to group words,Used to specify terms that shouldn't be excluded Example - from:amy(dinner OR film) Meaning - Messages from Amy that contain either the word "dinner" or the word "film" Example - subject:(dinner film)
Meaning - Messages in which the subject contains both the word "dinner" and the word "film"

11: in: anywhere Search for messages anywhere in your account (Messages in Spam and Trash are excluded from searches by default) Example - in:anywhere subject:film Meaning - Messages in All Mail, Spam, and Trash that contain the word "movie"

12.is:starred is:unread is:read :Search for messages that are starred, unread or read Example - is:read is:starred from:David Meaning - Messages from David that have been read and are marked with a star

13: cc: bcc: Used to specify recipients in the cc: or bcc: fields (Search on bcc: cannot retrieve messages on which you were blind carbon copied) Example - cc:david Meaning - Messages that were cc'd to David

14: after: before: Search for messages sent during a certain period of time (Dates must be in mm/dd/yyyy format.) Example - after:2004/04/16 before:2004/04/18
Meaning - Messages sent after April 16 2004, but before April 18 2004. (More precisely: Messages sent on 17th April 2004. )

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