Last week I told you I would give you more useful features found in Gmail which are the Search features available. A couple of you wrote and saying something like, “Gee, Ron, all you need to do is type the word in the search bar at the top for what you are looking for, press the enter key, and you find the correct email.” That is true, but there is more, much more.
Notice the “Search in mail” box at the top of your Gmail, where you may type a word to search for in your Gmail. Keep in mind that you can search for an individual word, which can make it difficult. For instance, you type “bill” and it will find emails with that as a name, hillbilly, or possibly William. If you need to look for “Attached is the bill” type it with quotes just as I did…capitalization does not matter. But with quotes, it will look for exactly the words typed. So do not misspell a word.
Now click the icon to the right side of the Search box, which has three horizontal lines with short vertical lines in each one. When you hover your mouse over it, “Show search options” is displayed, now click it. Now you have a window with ten “Filters” also known as “Operators.” I will not list them all here, as most of them make sense. Like From and To. You may even search by the date it was delivered, say in the past 14 days or yesterday. You may also search in your labels if you use them extensively as I do. Play with it and see what you can do to help more efficiently find a specific email. Without these operators, you will get many more emails than you need.
Now, back to the simple search box. Click in there and you can use other operators…if you know what they are. You may look for an Excel spreadsheet someone emailed you a year or two ago. Click in the search box (not the icon mentioned above) and type, “filename:xlsx” (without quotes). You will find any Excel file you have received and not deleted, even if there is still one attached to an email in your “Trash.” You can do any extension used today, doc, docx, pdf, txt, and more.
How about an email you need from Ron? You cannot remember his last name, but it is in your Trash folder/label, and you do not want one from me? Try typing “in:trash ron -doyle.” No quotes and no period. Guess what the minus sign tells the search? It means do not show me an email with Doyle anywhere in the email.
You may also use these, and other, operators in combinations with each other for more precise searches.
If you have found these search tips to be useful, guess what? Google has prepared a list of 30 operators that work with Gmail. Many of them also work in a Google search, but that is another topic. To look at them visit, “ghtech.site/gmloperators” to make your search life easier.