Utilize Gmail's Search Feature

I have an irrational fear of unread emails.  Anytime I get the chance to check my email, whether if it's on my laptop or when I'm on the go and happen to steal some poor soul's unsecured Internet and can connect my iPod Touch to their wifi network, I ALWAYS try to make sure I have no unread emails left over.  But I have automated emails sent to me, such as Facebook or Google Voice text messages, my top two most received emails.  However, there is not a single trace of emails from either of those two addresses in my inbox right now.  How do I do it? No, I don't click on the little checkbox next to each email after I read it - try deleting 20 emails on a busy afternoon.  I use Gmail's search bar.

I will gush about Gmail and its awesomeness in a later blog entry, but I have four accounts tied to my Gmail account: my primary Gmail address that has my full name in the address, my business/Internet affairs Gmail address, my old Hotmail account, my university email account, and my old Yahoo email account.  Any and all emails that get sent to any of those email addresses will end up in my primary Gmail account, which I can check easily on my laptop, on my iPod Touch, and on virtually any device with an Internet connection.  One username and password allows me to see emails from 5 email accounts.  That must require one heck of a organization system.

On top of using Gmail's labeling and filtering system, which will also go into my Gmail promotion topic, the search bar is indispensable.  To apply the search bar to delete the aforementioned bulk of emails I receive on an hourly basis, I simply type into Gmail's search bar "label:facebook OR label:texting".  Since I told Gmail to tag all incoming email from Facebook with the label "facebook" and the same for Google Voice texts, the search parameter I usually look up will find all emails matching those criteria and allow me to simply select all the automated emails and delete them in three clicks rather than having to hunt through my inbox, tick off each email individually, and delete them.

The use of Gmail's search bar is endless.  Here is a full list of search parameters one can use to find exactly what they want in his or her inbox.  With well over 7 gigabytes of storage space for emails, Gmail users will naturally accumulate hundreds, if not thousands or tens of thousands of emails.  Keep in mind that you can combine search parameters.  In my example, the "OR" operator tells Gmail to look for emails that either have the 'facebook' label or the 'texting' label.  If I did not include that operator, Gmail will only look for emails have both labels, which is not what I want.

Bottom line:

• Use Gmail's search feature to easily find the exact emails you're looking for


• Experts have yet to name a fear for unread emails, so I cannot officially declare that I have a problem  ^__^

For the full story and others like it, check out my blog: http://gotlactose.wordpress.com/