Searching and filtering email

Once you’ve used a Gmail account for a while, finding a specific email among thousands by merely scrolling becomes impractical. Luckily, Gmail has many ways to find what you need.

Viewing Messages by Label and Category

• In the Main Menu, many of Gmail’s automatic labels are hidden to save space. Click More to display all the Gmail automatic labels, like Important, Spam, and Trash. Use these to view only emails with these labels.
• Click Categories to display and select the category labels like Social, Updates, and Promotions. You can also click on the Category tabs above the inbox to view emails with these labels.
• If you have created many labels, they may be collapsed under a second “More” button under the Labels subheading. Click it to see all your labels.

You can control which labels and categories are displayed.

• Go to Settings > See all settings > Labels for options.

• If you select show for a label, it appears in the Main Menu. If you select hide it will be hidden until you click More. The option in bold is the currently selected option.

As you create new labels, they will appear in this list.

Gmail Search

You can use search to view emails that contain a keyword, arrived within a time frame, and more.

To search, start typing in the search box. Gmail will use predictive text to try to guess what you want based on your usage: who you often email, keywords that appear in emails, labels, and previous searches.

If you need to refine your search further, click .

The Search Options box contains all the ways you can filter your searches. The most powerful feature of this is the ability to filter in multiple ways. For example, you can search for an email from a specific email address, received on a specific day, and that has an attachment.

• From. Restricts results to emails from a certain email address.
• To. Restricts results to sent emails to a certain email address.
• Attachment. Restricts results to emails with an attachment. You can even specify what kind of attachment, such as an image, document, or PDF.
• Date. Restricts results to emails from a certain date or date range.
• Unread. Restricts results to unread emails.
• Label. Restricts results to emails with a certain label. Confusingly, this is near the bottom and labeled “Search.” It’s a drop-down menu that defaults to “All Mail.”