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).