How to search for messages in gmail.

This tutorial will show you the basics of performing a search in Gmail.

Just like with Google searches, search queries in Gmail can be as simple or as complicated as you want them to be.

To start, let’s perform a search for the word doing, which appears in one of our latest email conversations.

Type your search queries in the search textbox, located at the top of every page in Gmail.

Then, click the Search icon.

Your search results will be displayed above, as if you were viewing your Inbox or some other label’s contents.

You’ll be able to perform any of the email related functions exactly the same way as if you were viewing conversations using labels.

Now, let’s perform another search. The next word in that email is account… but let’s search for accounts (with an s).

As you can see, the message did not show up in the results because Gmail searches are more specific than your typical web search. For example, if you want to find all emails containing the word account, you must search for account and not any variations like accounts in order to for it to work.

Now let’s perform an advanced search. Click the search drop-down arrow.

With these options, you have more control over the search results that are returned. Let’s test out the From field.

Enter a name or email address.

You also have the ability to limit where you want the search to be performed.

Of note is the Mail, Spam and Trash option. Unless you choose this option, Gmail won’t display search results labelled as Spam or Trash.

We’ll leave ours set to All Mail.

Now, click the Search icon.

It worked! The only conversation containing mail from Demo User has shown up.

As this message indicates, even if you don’t choose Mail, Spam and Trash, you’ll still be informed if Gmail finds a match in your Trash or Spam.

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to perform a search in Gmail.