Make Gmail more powerful with advanced search

Last night I was reviewing messages in my Gmail account, trying to get them all sorted out and reach the much-coveted inbox zero. I needed Gmail to display only my unread emails so that I could process them one by one, when I realized Gmail didn’t have that option anywhere. Sure you can select all unread messages, but that’s of little use if they’re all scattered over a dozen pages. So I started searching for a solution, and only a few minutes after I found Gmail Advanced Search.

The advanced search options in Gmail let you use special words or symbols – called operators – to filter the messages displayed on your web browsers. It’s a quicker, more accurate way to find certain messages. You can filter you inbox to display only unread emails, only starred emails or only emails that came from a specific sender. What’s more, you can combine different operators and create super-refined filters like “messages from Peter with the word ‘dinner’ in the subject”.

These are some of the most useful operators you can use in Gmail:

• from: – displays messages received from a certain sender: from:peter
• to: – displays messages sent to a specific recipient: to:john 
• subject: – displays messages with certain words in the subject: subject:bbq
• label: – displays messages filed under specific labels: label:work
• in:(inbox, trash, spam) – displays all messages stored in any of those locations: in:trash
• is:(starred, unread) – displays messages you’ve starred or haven’t read yet: is:unread
• filename: – displays messages with a specific attachment: filename:softonic.pdf