Gmail Operators

Search operators you can use with Gmail

You can use words or symbols called search operators to filter your Gmail search results. You can also combine operators to filter your results even more.

How to use a search operator

1. Open Gmail.
2. In the search box, type the search operator.

Search operators you can use

Tip: Once you do a search using search operators, you can use the results to set up a filter for these messages.

What you can search by	Search operator & example
Specify the sender	From: Example: from:amy
Specify a recipient	To: Example: to:david
Words in the subject line	Subject: Example: subject:dinner
Messages that match multiple terms	OR or { } Example: from:amy OR from:david Example: {from:amy from:david}
Remove messages from your results	- Example: dinner -movie
Find messages with words near each other. Use the number to say how many words apart the words can be	AROUND Example: dinner AROUND 5 friday
Messages that have a certain label	Label: Example: label:friends
Messages that have an attachment	Has:attachment Example: has:attachment
Messages that have a Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, or Slides attachment or link	Has:drive Has:document Has:spreadsheet Has:presentation Example: has:drive has:document
Messages that have a YouTube video	Has:youtube Example: has:youtube
Messages from a mailing list	List: Example: list:info@example.com
Attachments with a certain name or file type	Filename: Example: filename:pdf Example: filename: homework.txt
Search for an exact word or phrase	" " Example: "dinner and movie tonight"
Group multiple search terms together	( ) Example: subject:(dinner movie)
Messages in any folder, including Spam and Trash	In:anywhere Example: in:anywhere movie
Search for messages that are marked as important	is:important label: important Example: is:important
Starred, unread, or read messages	is:starred is:unread is:read Example: is:read is:starred
Messages that include an icon of a certain color	has:yellow-star has: blue-info Example: has:purple-star
Recipients in the cc or bcc field	cc: bcc: Example: cc:david Note: You can't find messages that you received on bcc.
Search for messages sent during a certain time period	after: before: older: newer: Example: after:2004/04/16 Example: before:2004/04/18
Search for messages older or newer than a time period using d (day), m (month), and y (year)	older_than: newer_than: Example: newer_than:2d
Chat messages	Is:chat Example: is:chat movie
Messages delivered to a certain email address	Deliveredto: Example: deliveredto:username@gmail.com
Messages in a certain category	Category: Example: category:updates
Messages larger than a certain size in bytes	Size: Example: size:1000000
Messages larger or smaller than a certain size in bytes	larger: smaller: Example: larger:10M
Results that match a word exactly	+ Example: +unicorn
Messages with a certain message-id header	Rfc822msgid: Example: rfc822msgid:200503292@example.com
Messages that have or don't have a label	has:userlabels has:nouserlabels Example: has:nouserlabels  Note: Labels are only added to a message, and not an entire conversation.