Friday, July 1, 2011

Organise your Gmail Inbox

One of the most important feature, sorting messages is missing in GMail. By default, Gmail sorts mails by date, which doesn’t do a great job in organizing your inbox. There is no facility to sort mails by name, subject, size and sender.

One thing to note that Gmail is based on search and not sort, therefore things have to be done here in different ways.

Find All Unread Messages in Gmail
To view all (and only) unread messages in your Gmail account:
  • Type "is:unread" (not including the quotation marks) in the Gmail search field.
  • Click Search Mail.
If you do this search repeatedly or generally appreciate brevity, you can use "l:unread" or even "l:^u" instead of "is:unread" (or "label:unread").
Of course, you can combine the quest for unread messages with others:
  • "l:^u from:tim" finds all unread messages from "tim",
  • "l:^u l:^t" finds all unread starred mail, and
  • "l:^u l:^k subject:hi" finds all unread messages with "hi" in the subject that are in the Trash.

    Gmail is different from the regular mail clients like outlook or yahoo. It’s a very powerful application, if only you can learn to search and make proper filters. Here are some of the search operators that you will find useful in daily life.

    Operator

    Definition

    Example(s)

    from:

    Used to specify the sender

    Example: from:amy
    Meaning: Messages from Amy

    to:

    Used to specify a recipient

    Example: to:david
    Meaning: All messages that were sent to David
    (by you or someone else)

    subject:

    Search for words in the subject line

    Example: subject:dinner
    Meaning: Messages that have the word "dinner" in the subject

    OR

    Search for messages matching term A or term B* *OR must be in all caps

    Example: from:amy OR from:david Meaning: Messages from Amy or from
    David

    - (hyphen)

    Used to exclude messages from your search

    Example: dinner -movie
    Meaning: Messages that contain the word
    "dinner" but do not contain the word "movie"

    label:

    Search for messages by label* *There isn't a search operator for unlabeled 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"

    has:attachment

    Search for messages with an attachment

    Example: from:david has:attachment Meaning: Messages from David
    that have an attachment

    list:

    Search for messages on mailing lists

    Example: list:info@example.com
    Meaning: Messages with the words
    info@example.com in the headers, sent to or from this list

    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 labeled "work" that also have a PDF file as an attachment

    " " (quotes)

    Used to search for an exact phrase* *Capitalization 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 movie"
    Meaning: Messages containing the phrase "dinner and a movie" in the subject

    ( )

    Used to group words Used to specify terms that shouldn't be excluded

    Example: from:amy (dinner OR movie) Meaning: Messages from Amy
    that contain either the word "dinner" or the word "movie" Example: subject:(dinner
    movie)
    Meaning: Messages in which the subject contains both the word
    "dinner" and the word "movie"

    in:anywhere

    Search for messages anywhere in Gmail* *Messages in Spam and
    Trash
    are excluded from searches by default

    Example: in:anywhere movie Meaning: Messages in All Mail,
    Spam, and Trash that contain the word "movie"

    in:inbox
    in:trash
    in:spam

    Search for messages in Inbox, Trash, or Spam

    Example: in:trash from:amy Meaning: Messages from Amy that are
    in Trash

    is:important
    label:important

    Search within messages that
    Priority Inbox
    considers important.

    Example: is:important from:janet Meaning: Messages from Janet that
    were marked as important by Priority Inbox

    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

    has:yellow-star
    has:red-star has:orange-star has:green-star
    has:blue-star has:purple-star
    has:red-bang
    has:orange-guillemet has:yellow-bang has:green-check has:blue-info
    has:purple-question

    Search for messages with a particular star

    Example: has:purple-star from:David Meaning: Messages from David
    that are marked with a purple star

    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-ed to David

    after:
    before:

    Search for messages sent during a certain period of time* *Dates must be in yyyy/mm/dd
    format.

    Example: after:2004/04/16 before:2004/04/18 Meaning: Messages sent
    between April 16, 2004 and April 18, 2004.* *More precisely: Messages sent after
    12:00 AM (or 00:00) April 16, 2004 and before April 18, 2004.

    is:chat

    Search for chat messages

    Example: is:chat monkey Meaning: Any chat message including the
    word "monkey".

    deliveredto:

    Search for messages within a particular email address in the Delivered-To line of
    the message header

    Example: deliveredto:username@gmail.com Meaning: Any message with
    username@gmail.com in the Delivered-To: field of the message header (which can help
    you find messages forwarded from another account or ones sent to an alias).