To be more agile and efficient when managing our emails in Gmail, we can use filters. They are easy to apply and very useful. Let’s learn about all the options to filter and search emails in Gmail.
If you learn to use these filters, you will surely save a lot of time on searches and you will know how to find just that message you need in the blink of an eye. Today we want to help you find and learn how to use all the options to filter and search emails in Gmail. Let’s go there!
USE THE SEARCH ENGINE WITH KEYWORDS
It is one of the tools that you have most at your fingertips. You don’t have to search for this option, because it’s right up there at the top of your inbox. In the Search mailbox, you can enter the keywords you want. This option is the easiest to use.
It will come in handy if what you want is to find a message that you know contains very specific keywords. For example January gas bill. By clicking on the search button, the email or emails you are looking for will quickly appear. As you can see it is quite simple.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE SEARCH ENGINE FILTERS
But did you know that you have more options to search and find the emails you need? Gmail includes a good number of filters in its search engine with which you can refine the search. And it is that sometimes we need to reach a higher level of precision when locating messages.
If you want to learn how to activate these filters, we recommend you follow these instructions:
1. Access the Gmail tray and at the top, in the search box, click on the arrow that looks down. You will see that the different search options are displayed immediately.
2. From here, you will have the option to filter according to different criteria. You can count on the following:
- From: A good option to filter based on the sender. If you are sure that you are looking for messages from someone in particular, here you can indicate their first name or directly their email address. As soon as you write the first initial you will get a list with different proposals (probably those of the most recent or common contacts).
- To: If you want to find the messages you sent to a specific person or contact, with this filter you have it very easy. Just enter the name or address and all the emails you have sent will appear in chronological order.
- Subject: Do you remember the specific subject of a message? It may be easy for you to search for keywords in the subject, so you can use this filter. You will then have a list of proposals.
- Contains the words: Sometimes it is very easy for us to search for keywords. Imagine that you are looking for all the corresponding invoices in light of the last six months. It will be enough for you to write, for example, the name of the company together with the word invoice. Surely you will soon find the emails you are looking for.
- Does not contain: You have another option that is just the antagonist of the previous one and that will also come in handy to use it in combination or simply to find all the emails that do not contain a certain word. It is a good way to exclude everything that does not interest you, especially if you are one of those who have an overflowing inbox.
- Size: You will recognize them by their weight. There are emails that weigh a lot because they contain very valuable documents. If you know that the email you are looking for is worth its weight in gold, perhaps you should use these search criteria. It will come in handy to differentiate the messages that contain important information from those that only consist of text.
- Date range: It is a very good option – or better said, filter – to search for emails sent or received during a certain period. It is very useful to find, for example, those emails that have been sent or received during the last month, the last quarter or the last year. If you combine it with other search criteria, you will soon find the collection of emails you are looking for.
- Find: Another filter that you have the option of using combined with other criteria is the Search filter. And it is that here the system allows you to select between different folders or labels. You can also choose if you only want it to search your Inbox, Starred, Sent, Drafts, Chats, Spam, or Trash.
- Contains attachments: You can also differentiate between emails that include attachments and those that don’t. If you know that someone regularly sends you messages with attached content and you need to search for one of these documents, you can check that box. In this way, you will get faster access to what you want.
- Do not include chats: Finally, you should know that in these searches, Gmail also considers the conversations that we have through Hangouts. In this way, conversations may appear in the search results that have no relevance to us or that simply make your work more complicated. Check this box to prevent conversations or chats from appearing in search results.
All in all, you will see how easy it is to find the emails you are looking for through the filters.