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Are you struggling to find older emails in Gmail and need to learn how to use its search options? I will show you the various ways I use to search for emails on my Gmail account.
Option 1: Search for Messages by Time Range
In Gmail, you can search for emails after or before a certain date. You can also search for emails older or newer than a specific date. If you even want messages between dates, you can search by combining after and before conditions.
The general search syntax is:
<Search_Condition>:YYYY/MM/DD
<Search_Condition> is after, before, older or newer.
YYYY/MM/DD: Is the date. YYYY is year, MM is month, DD is day.
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To search for emails sent before January 10th, 2015:
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- On the search bar on top of your Gmail, enter the search term shown below. Then press Enter:
Before:2015/1/10
Here is the result in Gmail.
To search for all emails sent after January 10, 2015, replace Before with After in the search bar. Then press Enter key.
After:2015/1/10
The search will show only emails sent after 10th January 2015.
If you want to search for emails between January 1 to 31st January 2015, use this search term. Then press the Enter key.
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After:2015/1/1 Before:2015/1/31
How to Search Gmail for Emails Before or After a Certain Date With Specific Word(s)
You can search Gmail before or after a date for specific words.
Here is the syntax:
<Search_Condition>:YYYY/MM/DD <words to search for>
In the syntax above, <words to search for> is the word you include into the search. As an example, to find emails sent after March 1 2016 but before May 30 2016 containing the phrase “holiday booking”, use the following:
After:2016/3/1 Before:2016/5/30 holiday booking
Option 2: Search for Older or Newer Messages
You can also search Gmail by date older or newer than a period using d for day, m for month, or y for year.
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The syntax for this search type is:
<older_than>: | <newer_than>: <number>d | <number>m | <number>y
older_than searches for emails older than the specified days, month or years
newer_than finds emails newer than the days, month or years specified
number is a numeric value, eg 1, 2, 10
d, m, y specifies day, month or year
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older_than:4y
In another example, you can search for emails containing specific words or phrases older than or newer than a specified date. Say, you want to find all emails with the word “payment” sent before 4 years ago, I will use this search criteria:
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Option 3: Combine Multiple Search Criteria
In the last section of this guide, I will demonstrate how you can search Gmail by date for emails sent after a certain date but older than a specified number of days, months or years.
As an example, if you want to find emails you received after 10th December, 2018 but newer than 2 months, use this search:
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Conclusion
One of the things that make Gmail such a powerful free email is its inbuilt search capabilities. In this guide, I have shared various ways you can find emails using different search criteria.
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