November 15, 2012

Gmail Finds Similar Words and Spelling Mistakes

Gmail has constantly improved its search feature in the past few months. After adding spell checking, suggestions, searching inside attachments, Gmail now matches similar words that have the same root. You can find a message even if you don't remember the exact words and that's pretty helpful.

Now you can search for [cat] and find messages that include the word [cats], search for [start] and find messages that only include [starting], search for [usable] and match [usability], search for [colour] and match [color], [coloured], [colours], [multicolor] and more.



Gmail also finds spelling mistakes like "clours" instead of "colours".


Gmail's search feature is less sophisticated than Google Search, so Gmail won't find synonyms and acronyms. You won't find messages that include "New York" when you search for [NY] or messages that include "tv" when you search for [television], at least not yet.

To prevent Gmail from finding related matches, use the + operator. For example, search for [+usable] and Gmail will no longer return messages that only include "usability".

8 comments:

  1. You are absolutely right....Gmail constantly improves its features and it is very user freindly. Nice post. Please keep posting useful informations...

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  2. Why are they introducing the + operator which was repurposed in search (+ searches for stuff on google+)?

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  3. Gmail has regularly enhanced its search function in the past few months. After including magic verifying, recommendations, searching inside accessories, Gmail now suits similar terms that have the same main.

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    ReplyDelete
  4. Replies
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    2. Oh heh. The last time I tried it it looked awful, but it looks quite nice now.

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  6. I feel ever since this change that Gmail search now sucks. Before I would just type a few words and the email that I wanted to find would be the 1st to 3rd one shown. Now, I type a whole bunch of words, and it still has trouble finding it.

    I also feel like before it would prioritize in its search results a conversation / thread before other results if the words one searched for are found, but spread across a thread -- i.e. for those thread emails, one email might have my name, another the word ebay, another a particular set of words. Now, it seems to be matching by individual emails.

    ReplyDelete

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