Friday

The Power of Gmail Search

No Comments May 16, 2008 | Permalink |  Print |

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One of the primary differentiation point of Gmail is its “Archive all and Search later” approach to email management. I must admit I was a skeptic when I first started using it after many years of masterful hierarchical folder management using Microsoft outlook. Now I am a total convert, as long as you know how to search for it, it is much easy to search and find the email you want than to plan and anticipate for the right folder structure for easy access.

I accidentally came across this official Gmail Blog article on Gmail Search by the Gmail product marketing manager and was reminded of some of the powerful search options that are at my disposal when searching for a particular email. In case you didn’t realise there were operators for Gmail searching, here is the complete guide

Most of the standard operators like “OR” and quotes applies just like normal Google Search, the killer search options for me is the “From” and “To” operator. If you know the keyword you need to use and who you received the email from or who you sent the email to, the search is as good as done. The “To” and “From” operators act as a powerful filter that limits the scope of search and dramatically increase the accuracy of your results.

If you do not remember who you received that important email from, then it’s back to keyword searching 101.

If you are a search oriented person like me then Gmail is a God send. If you are already a Gmail user, then you aught to learn the Gmail search options to truly unleash the power of the underlying search engine.