Search Techniques: Find your Gmail by label short names
All Gmail’s “folders” - even the Inbox, Sent Mail and unread messages - are actually labels, and you can narrow your email searches to them using the label: operator (or l: for short). The Google Operating System weblog lists more shorthand that refers to these special labels:
^b chats
^f sent mail
^i inbox
^k trash
^r draft
^s spam
^t starred messages
^u unread mail
Using these along with the l: operator, you can search for, say, all the unread messages not in your Inbox using -l:^i l:^u. Not exactly readable, but certainly succinct. —Gina Trapani
