Do you spend ages hunting down information in your gmails? Trying to refine your search so that it brings back less than 20 pages? The more-efficient-than-most Allegra Tepper just published a slideshow of quick search tips: How to Find Anything in Your Gmail in Mashable which could save me a whole bunch of time. However, what she didn't do was publish it in a way that makes it easy to refer to, so in response to the comments beneath her post, here are Allegra's tips for you to copy, paste and stick on your pinboard. Or Pinterest board of course....
Use these shortcuts to specify where emails are coming from and going to. Just make sure there's no space after the colon.
Example: from:peggy olson
Yield: Messages from Peggy Olson, which Don will likely ignore.
2. OR
This option allows you to search for messages that include either of two or more criteria.
Example: to:betty francis OR from:henry francis
Yield: Messages to/from either member of the Francis pair. Henry's hosting a fundraising cocktail hour, and Betty wants you to know there'll be pie.
3. - (hyphen)
Use a hyphen to exclude specific terms from your search.
Example: campaigns -jaguar
Yield: Messages that contain the word "campaigns," excluding content pertaining to the worms at Jaguar.
Use this search option to limit your search to messages that include an attachment.
Example: from:don draper has:attachment
Yield: Only messages sent from Don with a file attached, though something tells us Don outsources any and all email tasks to the other Dawn. Close enough.
This opens the search to messages anywhere in Gmail (emails stored in Spam and Trash are excluded from searches by default).
Example: in:anywhere from:joan harris
-maternity leave
Yield: Messages from Joan stored anywhere in Gmail, excluding those that contain information regarding her "maternity leave."
Narrow your search with this shortcut, which will refine the date range of your results. This one only works using the format yyyy/mm/dd.
Example: from:megan calvet before:1965/10/07 after:1965/10/12
Yield: Messages from Megan gabbing to the secretarial pool during her lightning-fast courtship with Don.
7. is:chat
Looking for information sent in a chat? Gmail saves your chat conversations by default, unless you go "off the record."
Example: is:chat from:roger sterling vodka
Yield: Chat messages from Roger that include "vodka." Knowing Roger, those results probably won't be narrow enough.
This narrows your search to a particular Google+ circle.
Note: For circle names that include a space, parentheses, curly brackets or vertical bar, make sure to include quotes around the name. For names that include quotes, add a backslash immediately before the quotes.
Example: circle:creative
Yield: Any message sent from one of the folks over in creative, where misogyny and vulgarity come gratis.
Use parentheses to group key search words, or to specify terms that shouldn't be excluded.
Example: from:harry crane (kinsey OR hare krishna)
Yield: Messages from Harry that contain either "Kinsey" or "Hare Krishna." Hopefully, Harry knows better than to bring Paul Kinsey's spiritual awakening into the workplace.
Quotes will refine the search to only include messages that contain an exact phrase. Note: This search function is not case sensitive.
Example: to:pete campbell "grab a drink"
Yield: Messages sent to Pete about blowing out of SCDP early for a stiff one. Don't tell Trudy!
.. and if you've found this useful, don't tell me. Well, you can, but be sure to hop on over to Mashable and say thanks to Allegra :-)