Finding Gmail

Losing an important email can be frustrating.  More often than not, an email is not gone, but cannot be found for some reason.  Today's post will explain a few Gmail tips on finding an email.

Search for it

Google is, of course, best known as a search company.  So searching your own email should be something they do well.  At the top of your screen, there is a search box for searching your mail.  Just type in a term and hit enter.  It should be that easy.  Clicking on the down arrow between the search field and magnifying glass brings up an advanced search field.

Search trash and spam separately

But what if search does not find what you are seeking?  For starters, search does not display results from your trash or spam folders.  If you want to search there, you need to specify that folder.  For example, if I wanted to find an email that contained the word "flower" I would run these searches for the following folders:

in:spam flower
in:trash flower

Incidentally, both the spam and the trash folders hold emails for 30 days and then delete them. So you should not use these folders to hold anything you want to access later.  It also means you don't need to worry about cleaning out these folders manually.  They are self-cleaning.  Cleaning out items manually only denies you that 30 day recovery period if you made a mistake.  Once removed completely, you cannot recover them.

Archived mail

Sometimes an email has been archived.  Archiving in Gmail means something very different than in our old system.  Previously, it meant the message would be moved offline to a separate database.  In Gmail, archiving simply means the message is retained but is not in the inbox or in any other folder you may have created.

There are times when an email gets archived by mistake.  Often, deleting an item on your phone causes it to be archived.  You can search for archived items in Gmail, or simply open "all mail" to view everything, including archived messages.  If you see a message with no labels on it, you can add a label to move it to one of your folders, or add the inbox label back to put it back in your inbox.  Or, you can choose to delete or make as spam.

Another quick aside: why mark something as spam rather than just delete?  If you mark an item as spam, Google will remember that choice and be more likely to mark future similar emails or emails from the same sender as spam.  This helps keep your inbox cleaner.  But if you want to see similar messages in the future, just delete them.  Don't mark as spam.

Narrowing your search

Say you run a search but get too many results.  You may want to use some more advanced search results.  You can limit by date.  You may also want to limit a name by field.  Say, for example,  you are looking for an important email that Mr. McKenna sent you .  If you simply type Mckenna into search, it will show every email on which he was copied, or even just mentioned.  But if you search for from:mmckenna@margolisedelstein.com you will only get messages sent from that address.

For other advanced search commands, check out this advanced search help page from Google.