You can find an email in your inbox using search terms. To help you search faster, Gmail suggests search terms as you enter words. These search terms are based on information from your Gmail account, like messages, contacts, labels or past searches.
How to search
Important: If you're offline, only emails synced to your device are visible. If you search through Gmail Go, searching won't work while you're offline.
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Gmail app
.
- At the top, in the search box, tap Search mail.
.- Optional: Tap Filter
then tap a filter to make your search more specific. Learn more about available search filters.
then tap a filter to make your search more specific. - Enter search criteria.
- Tap Search
.
.
- Your results include all messages except those in your spam or bin.
- When you search for a person’s email address, the results will also show emails that include their alias. To limit the search to only the original email address, the search should be enclosed in double quotes. Example: "from:[email protected]".
- When you search for "from:email", the results also will return Drive files shared by that email address.
Search for your chat messages in Gmail
- Open the Gmail app
- At the bottom, tap Chat
.
- At the top, tap Search in chat.
- Search for what you want to find.
- Tap the chat that you want to open.
Use filters when you search
You can use filters at the beginning of your search or after you've searched to narrow down your results. Below are the available search filters and what they do. You can combine multiple filters to narrow down your search.
From
- Search for anything that was sent from a certain email address.
To
- Search for anything that you've sent to a certain email address.
Attachment
- Search for anything that has an attachment included or has a specific type of attachment such as Google Docs, Google Sheets or a PDF.
Date
- Search for anything that was sent from a certain date range or specific date.
Unread
- Search for anything that is currently marked as 'unread'.
Exclude calendar updates
- Search for anything that is not a Google Calendar update.
Tip: You can also use search operators to filter your search results.
How searches are saved
The words that you use to search and browse in Gmail are saved for you. This feature improves suggestions when you search in the future.
- For this feature to work, you must have the Web and App Activity setting turned on.
- To go to and control your saved activity, visit My Activity.
Search within a label
You can now search messages under a specific Gmail label in the app to return results only within that label. You can also use search chips in the Gmail search box to refine label searches.
To search from your list of labels:
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Gmail app
- At the top left, tap Menu
.
- Tap the label that you want to search in.
- Enter your search criteria.
- Under the search box, in the filter row, adjust your search filters.
.To search from the search box:
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Gmail app
- At the top, in the search box, tap Search mail.
- Enter your search criteria.
- Under the search box, in the filter row, adjust your search filters and choose the label that you want to search in.
Clear search history
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Gmail app
- At the top left, tap Menu
- Tap Settings
General settings.
- At the top right, tap More
.
- Tap Clear search history
General settings.
.Tip: your search history will only be cleared from your device. You can also clear your search history from Google servers. Learn how to delete your activity.