To quickly find emails and attachments, use search chips, advanced search, and other search features in Gmail.
Learn what happens when you search in Gmail
- 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:
- Contacts
- Labels
- Messages
- Past searches
- To improve your search experience, searches you make in Gmail that return no results show related results instead.
- You can sort search results by relevancy or by chronological order. To sort your results, select Most relevant or Most recent.
Search for emails
In this article, learn how to:
- Use the search bar
- Narrow your search results
- Search for emails in Spam & Trash
- Clear search history
Use the search bar
Important: If you don’t have an internet connection, you can only search for emails synced with your device.
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Gmail app
.
- At the top, in the search box, tap Search in mail.
- Enter your search criteria.
- On your on-screen keyboard, tap Search
.
.
.Tip: To sort emails in chronological order, above the search results, tap Most relevant 
Narrow your search results
To narrow your search, you can:
- Use search chips for emails & attachments
- Use search operators
- Ask Gemini in Gmail
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Gmail app
- At the top, in the search box, tap Search in mail.
- Enter your search criteria.
- To narrow your search and filter criteria, under the search box, tap a chip:
- Label: Search for emails under a specific label.
- From: Search for anything from a specific email address.
- To: Search for anything that you sent to a certain email address.
- Attachment: Search for anything with attachments or have a specific type of attachment:
- Google Docs
- Google Sheets
- Date: Search for anything that’s sent within a certain date range or specific date.
- Is unread: Search for anything that’s currently marked as "Unread."
- Exclude calendar updates: Search for anything that isn't a Google Calendar update.
To filter Gmail search results, you can use search operators, like words or symbols. If you search for emails, you can combine multiple search operators.
For example, you can search for:
- Senders: [email protected]
- Date ranges: after:2025/01/01 before:2025/05/01
- Files, attachments, and other attributes: has:attachment
For a full list of search operators, learn how to refine searches in Gmail.
Tips:
- If you search for a person’s email address, the results show emails that include their alias.
- To limit the search to only the original email, enclose the search in quotes. For example: "from:[email protected]."
- If you search "from:email," the results show Drive files shared by that email address.
If you have an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan, you can ask Gemini in Gmail to search for emails. For example:
- "Show my unread emails."
- "Emails from [person] sent last week."
- "Show unread emails from this week."
Search for emails in Spam & Trash
Important: By default, emails in Spam and Trash aren’t included in a standard search. To find emails in Spam and Trash, use advanced search in Gmail.
- On your Android phone or tablet, open the Gmail app
- At the top, in the search box, enter
in:anywhere. - Enter information that’s in the email.
- On your on-screen keyboard, tap Search
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
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.Learn how searches are saved in your Google Account
Important: The words you use to search and browse in Gmail are saved. This feature improves suggestions in future searches. To use this feature, on the "Activity controls" page, turn on Web & App Activity.
- If you clear your search history in Gmail, all your email searches are removed across all devices.
- To control your saved activity, check My Activity.
- You can also clear your search history from Google servers. Learn how to delete your activity.