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When I do a search in Gmail, all my mail is searched, but I only want to search my chats. Is this possible?

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    It is amazing this is still broken from a UX point of view. How freaking hard is it to put a search button on the Google Chat window???
    – user72479
    Dec 20, 2018 at 12:22

3 Answers 3

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Use is:chats. It will search for chat messages. Example: is:chat monkey — meaning any chat message including the word “monkey”.

Here you can find a lot more advanced search options.

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  • is:chats — with the plural for “chat”. Jul 3, 2013 at 14:34
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in:chat also works, for searching conversations with the label chat

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is:chat & in:chats are great, in the Gmail full Desktop Web view mode, BUT...

  • It doesn't work in Gmail's Basic HTML Desktop Web view;
  • It doesn't work in Gmail's Mobile Web view;
  • It doesn't work in the Google Voice web view;
  • It doesn't work in the Gmail mobile app itself;
  • As far as I can tell, it doesn't work within the API at all.

Since Gmail's full Desktop Web view no longer works in "Desktop" mode on many mobile devices, it may be impossible to search your chat history from a mobile device. (The Browser Agent reported by mobile browsers when operating in "Request Desktop" mode is deprecated & unsupported by most modern website designs; many issues exist which will not be resolved, ever.)

Any Messaging app that doesn't have Search is seriously lacking a major feature. It seems obvious to me that Hangouts (much less the original Chats app, which had a better name) should have a Search feature. Additionally, it is straight up idiotic that the Gmail app's Search feature doesn't support these flags.

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