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). |
