The filters search against all messages, and then returns entire conversations (assuming the user has turned on Conversation View in the Settings). If any message within a conversation is returned by the filterquery, then the entire conversation is returned, even if the conversation as a whole is not starred.
Therefore using the -in:starred
will only work if ALL the messages in the thread are starred.
What is misleading about the Gmail UI is that starring the conversation, does not star all the containing messages, and therefor won't remove it from the filtered inbox when using the -in:starred
search option, despite appearing to be starred in the main inbox view.
The syntax of the filerfilter is not important, Gmail accepts both -in:starred
and -is:starred
with or without the AND keyword.
Of course, if you do not use Gmail in Conversation View (Settings → General → Conversation View), then the filter will work as expected.