Gmail Crib Sheet
A useful(?) reference to lesser-known features of Gmail.
Search modifiers
label:x — messages with label "x" applied (use "-" for a space in names with spaces)
before:yyyy/m/d and after:yyyy/m/d — messages before/after the given date (note order of year/month/day)
Sorting labels
Gmail automatically sorts label names. Sometimes it is nice to "force" a particular sorting order. This can be done by (for example) inserting an extra punctuation mark at the start of a label name. But with Gmail labels, it is not as simple as the standard ASCII/ISO ordering that most programmers are familiar with.
Here is the sort order used in Gmail labels:
- Punctuation marks, in this order: _ , ; : ! ? / . ` ~ ' " ( ) [ ] { } @ $ * \ & # % + < = > |
- The digits 0 to 9
- The letters A to Z (case-insensitive)
In addition, the hyphen (-) seems to have its own sort rules. Labels are sorted in the order above, ignoring all hyphens. Then labels that are the same except for the hyphens they contain are sorted in this order:
- Label with no hyphens comes first.
- Label with a hyphen at the end comes next.
- Label with a hyphen second from the end comes next.
- And so on.
- Label with a hyphen at the beginning comes last.
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is how Gmail would sort the following labels:
- Apple
- Apple-
- Apple--
- A-p-p-l-e
- -Apple
- --Apple
Finally, note these additional quirks:
- Except for their sorting order, the hyphen and some other punctuation marks (" & ( ) - / { } |) are all considered the same! Labels using one will conflict with those using another if the labels are otherwise identical. For example, you cannot have two labels "& Steve" and "( Steve" because Gmail will complain that they conflict.
- The caret (^) is not allowed in labels at all.
- There is no way to force labels to come after "Z" labels (except by adding lots of Z's to them).
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