Search in Gmail

You can find an email in your inbox with 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

An illustration of searching on Gmail on iOS

Important: If you're offline, only emails synced to your device are visible. You can also use basic search operators. This feature is only available in some languages.

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Gmail app .
  2. At the top, in the search box, tap Search mail.
  3. Enter your search criteria.
  4. Tap Search Search.
  • Your results include all messages except those in spam or trash.
  • When you search a person’s email address, the results will also show emails that include their alias. To limit the search to only the original email, the search should be enclosed in double quotes. Example: "from:john.doe@gmail.com".
  • When you search 'from:email", the results will also return Drive files shared by that email address.

Tip: You can also use search operators to filter your search results.

How searches are saved
The words you use to search and browse in Gmail are saved for you. This feature improves suggestions when you search in the future.

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:

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Gmail app .
  2. At the top left, tap Menu .
  3. Tap the label you want to search in.
  4. Enter your search criteria.
  5. Under the search box, in the filter row, adjust your search filters.

To search from the search box:

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Gmail app .
  2. At the top, in the search box, tap Search mail.
  3. Enter your search criteria.
  4. Under the search box, in the filter row, adjust your search filters and choose the label you want to search in.

Clear search history

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Gmail app .
  2. At the top left, tap Menu and then Settings .
  3. Under “General,” tap Clear search history and then Clear.

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.

Search
Clear search
Close search
Google apps
Main menu
15266857696093140248
true
Search Help Center
true
true
true
true
true
17
false
false