Gmail Tip: How To Browse Only the Unread Messages

by Daniel Scocco

If you are anything like me, you probably have dozens of unread messages sitting on your Gmail account. I try to keep my inbox zeroed through out the week, but sometimes you just can’t handle the amount of incoming messages.

Other times you leave some messages unread on purpose, because you know that you are only going to need them in the future (that happens when you run a contest or a competition, for example).

Now when I first started using Gmail, I would run through all the previous pages in order to find those unread messages. Needless to say it was a boring and time consuming task. Then one day I thought: “hmm, there must be a better way to do this.”

There was, and it was pretty simple. All you need to do it is to search for “label:unread” on the Gmail search box. This will filter only the unread messages.

What other Gmail tricks do you use frequently?

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37 Responses to “Gmail Tip: How To Browse Only the Unread Messages”

Technotip.org on August 9th, 2008 10:05 am

Excellent find Daniel…I was badly in need of this trick.
Ben on August 9th, 2008 11:29 am

Great tip !!! Just tried it out and it does make life a lot easier email-wise.
Muhammad Siyab on August 9th, 2008 12:21 pm

I use a filter automatically mark mail such as blog backups and such read and sent to the trash. And my inbox stays neat and clean
Abhijeet from Jeet Blog on August 9th, 2008 12:32 pm

label:unread would display all the unread messages in your mail. However if you are a heavy user of Gmail filters and labels then you can search unread messages in a specific label by typing this – “label:label name label:unread”

For example you just want to see the unread messages in Inbox then you can type – label:inbox label:unread . Similarly for all other labels.
Ramiro on August 9th, 2008 12:58 pm

Very good tip. I did not konw It is so easy. Thank you for this short post.
Eli on August 9th, 2008 1:05 pm

Dozens? I have 690 unread at the moment and that’s after I removed about 600 topic reply notification emails the other day. I’m trying to get it back under control though

Thanks for the tip, I needed this one.
Writer Dad on August 9th, 2008 1:12 pm

I did not know that. Thank you.
Michael Sync on August 9th, 2008 2:32 pm

Nice Tip! Thanks..
Kevin on August 9th, 2008 5:02 pm

You can also do “is: unread”.
raitocorleone on August 9th, 2008 10:05 pm

I’m sorry but i want to say what you post is an unnecessary move.

You can input “read” only.

and here is a lot of other word:

From,to,In:trash,Has:attachment ,Subject,Filename
keith w. on August 10th, 2008 2:35 am

thanks, was just racking my brain the other day trying to figure out a way to do this!
aaron on August 10th, 2008 2:41 am

Being able to select all unread messages is a major reason behind me moving all of my accounts to GMail. I have no idea why all online email providers don’t do this.
Mohd Hafifi on August 10th, 2008 3:29 am

thank you so much..
sailor on August 10th, 2008 5:56 am

Neat trick. One that is worth remembering. Thanks.
Need_knowledge on August 10th, 2008 11:38 am

Hey good tip man, i’m using gmail this is good tips. Keep on going for good tips.
Happy blogging
Ulla Hennig on August 10th, 2008 2:33 pm

Nice tip – I didn’t know it up to now.
Arjen on August 10th, 2008 4:06 pm

Good tip! Gmail seems to be full of ‘hidden’ useful features
Jef on August 10th, 2008 4:19 pm

I wonder how many other tips and tricks about gmail that I don’t know yet? Thanks!
stetoscope on August 11th, 2008 12:33 pm

That’s what I call a tip !
SomeAudioGuy on August 11th, 2008 6:17 pm

This is PERFECT!
I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this since I signed up for Google.
Why it’s not a button already is beyond me…
Nick Stamoulis on August 11th, 2008 8:27 pm

Great tip although our Gmail has been down for over an hour now so these tips would be great if we could access our email! LOL
SBA on August 11th, 2008 11:42 pm

I use the “starred” flag, but then I don’t have hundreds to come back to! Also create a label for storing certain emails under , e.g. “DailyBT” or “Post Reference”.. etc. Then search for that label name later.
Tomer on August 12th, 2008 8:05 am

I was using is:unread for the same thing.
Cory on August 12th, 2008 3:03 pm

I love gmail, it is by far the best email provider that is out there, than again maybe its because its by google, the best company out there.

-Cory
http://www.cashmakingblog.com
Geek Samrat on August 14th, 2008 3:46 am

Hey thank you very much for the tip. Accidentally I came across your site. Actually I was searching for this tip some time back. Good explanation. Thank you. please do write some simple tips like this….
Paula on August 14th, 2008 9:25 am

Excellent..I needed that tip. I missed a really important message last week because it was ‘hidden’ amongst all of my messages. I have a very bad habit of not clearing out my Gmail mail. I am getting better though.
Stefan Wurz on October 4th, 2008 11:31 am

Very good tip! Thank you for this short post.
rangan on December 11th, 2008 1:25 am

The technique can be better implemented as follows:

label:label name is:unread
Gustavo on March 19th, 2009 7:49 pm

Great!!!
This is just what I’ve been wondering since a while but never googled it.

Add to this tip: If you want to search unread messages in a particular label just add that query.

ie. if you put “label:unread” it gives you all of your unread messages. but if you want only your inbox messages type “label:unread label:inbox”

Gustavo
gux on May 13th, 2009 10:09 am

Nice one! I was looking exactly how to do this.

Do you mind if I translate it to Spanish in my blog? (of course, referencing the source)

Cheers,
Gux
medyum on July 9th, 2009 11:59 am

I did not know that. Thank you.
ssk sorgulama on July 23rd, 2009 12:37 pm

Being able to select all unread messages is a major reason behind me moving all of my accounts to GMail. I have no idea why all online email providers don’t do this.
The Taz on September 16th, 2009 5:48 am

Here is an approach that saves some time:1) Go to Settings, Labs, and enable “Quick Links” which is near the top.2) Follow the steps in the eHow article above, then select “Add a Quick Link” in the new box that has appeared on your left panel. 3) Save the Quick Link as “Unread” and you will have one click access to all unread mail.4) Repeat the process for “Label:Read” and you will have one click access to all read mail.
Rowan Pettett on September 22nd, 2009 8:55 pm

This is a great tool, but there’s one frustration issue – the returned search results ignore my “Show 50 conversations per page” setting and display only 20 per page. What’s with that?