Whether you’re a longtime Gmail user or you’re brand new to Google’s email platform, a frustration you may have how to find old emails. Because Gmail was built on the philosophy of archiving old emails instead of deleting them, users often have thousands and thousands of emails stored in their accounts.
While cloud-based email was novel when Gmail was introduced in beta in 2004, users’ expectations have grown since then. Google Google Workspace has become an increasingly popular business productivity suite and business users of Gmail have higher expectations of their email platforms.
To save time for users, Google has begun rolling out a new method for searching and filtering emails that will simplify the process of finding the exact message or messages you’re looking for.
Introducing “Search Chips”
Until now, finding a specific email in your Gmail account meant either remembering a long list of search operators, or using the Advanced Search box and manually typing in various parameters.
To simplify the search process, Google has introduced a new Gmail feature called “search chips.” The way search chips work is that after searching for an email with a keyword or search operator, you’ll now see clickable filter buttons at the top of your search results.
Which chips appear depend on context, but examples include:
- Include or exclude chats
- To anyone or only to me
- Older than a specified time frame
- Has or does not have an attachment
- Include or exclude social
- Include or exclude promotions
- From or not from Google
When “Has Attachment” is selected, the type(s) of attachment can be specified—PDF, Spreadsheet, etc. Advanced Search is also a chip.
Here’s an example of what search chips look like:
If you enter an email address in the search bar, you can choose “only to that address” or “only from that address.”
When you click on Advanced Search, the boxes will be pre-filled with your chips selections.
Search chips help eliminate a lot of the “search and scroll” problems users currently face when searching because there are often too many results.
Google has rolled out chips to Google Workspace users already. Search chips for consumer Gmail users will be coming at a later date.
Appeasing business users is clearly front of mind for Google. These chips will make finding specific conversations, attachments, and shared documents much easier.
