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Let's say I want to search the items that I sent to other people for messages on a topic. In other email apps, I'd typically go to that folder then hit search (and only broaden to all folders if I couldn't find what I wanted there). Gmail assumes you want to search everything - what's the simplest way to limit this? (As I'm typing this, an idea occurs to me, but I'll ask a related question.)

How can I easily refer to myself in Gmail search? I'd like to say "to:me" or something similar to refer to emails sent to this account, or from this account, etc. rather then having to specify/select this account's address from my contacts.

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As you mentioned, the keyword "me" should work.

from:me label:sent "topic goes here"
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  • You're kidding! How long has from:me worked? I swear I tried that a long while back and it didn't work so I hadn't tried it again. I guess that's a downside to continuously adding features - early users don't realize newer stuff is available.
    – Cincinnati Joe
    Feb 11, 2012 at 15:36
  • As I was typing the question, it occurred to me to look for the "label" tag and it does work to just use "sent" for Sent Mail.
    – Cincinnati Joe
    Feb 11, 2012 at 15:59
  • It seems using "from:me" and "label:sent" would be redundant, but in fact "from:me" does not work as you'd expect. I get hits returned by that search which is mail I did not send. The larger question is why doesn't gmail simply behave the same with "sent items" as it does with every other label folder? When you click on "Sent Items" it should populate the search field with "label:sent" just like it does with every other label search. This has always baffled me.
    – user23451
    Aug 17, 2012 at 21:37

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