Message search lives in global search: press Ctrl + K (or ⌘ K on a Mac) or click the magnifier in the dock. Opened from your inbox, it is already scoped to your messages. One click on the scope chip widens it to everywhere. The quiet “Filter…” field above the message list narrows what is currently shown, and pressing / in the inbox focuses it.
Searching chat
Type a couple of characters or more and matching chat messages appear with a highlighted snippet, the conversation they belong to, and the sender. Selecting a result jumps you to that exact message in its thread, with the surrounding context.
- Scope: search across all your conversations, or only the one you have open.
- Type: narrow to text messages, files, or links.
- Sender and dates: filter by who sent it and a from/to date range.
- Recent searches: your latest searches are kept handy for reuse.
Searching mail
Mail search covers your inbox, sent mail, drafts, starred, snoozed, archive, spam, and trash. In global search, pick a mailbox in the filter panel or type operators directly into the query:
- from:, to: and subject: match sender, recipient or subject (quote multi-word values, e.g. subject:"review request").
- has:attachment and is:unread show only mail with attachments, or unread mail.
- before: and after: set a date range, for example after:2026-01-01.
- in: limits results to one folder, for example in:sent.
The same operators also work in the inbox list’s “Filter…” field when a mail mailbox is open, where each recognised operator shows as a chip beneath the field.