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One of the many good things about Gmail is the ability to search your emails by date. You can find emails received after or before a specific date, find emails newer or older than certain days, and so on. We'll show you how.

You can search Gmail by date on both your desktop and mobile devices. On desktop, you will use the Gmail site. On mobile, you will use the official Gmail app. Additionally, you can use these date search filters in conjunction with your other filters. This makes finding emails even easier.

Related: How to Use Gmail's Advanced Search Features & Create Filters

Find Gmail Emails Older Than Specified Days, Months, or Years

To find emails that are older than specified days, months, or years, enter the following query in Gmail's search box and press Enter.

older_than:5d

Find the emails older than specified time.

This query finds emails that are older than five days. Feel free to replace 5 with any number you want. Also, replace d with m  for months and y  for years, if you want.

Did you know Gmail also lets you filter emails by size?

Find Gmail Emails Newer Than Specified Days, Months, or Years

To see emails that are newer than specified days, months, or years, use the following query in Gmail's search box.

newer_than:7d

Find the emails newer than specified time.

This query retrieves emails that are newer than seven days. Replace 7 with any number you want, and replace d  with m  for months or y  for years.

You are free to combine the "newer_than" and "older_than" search queries to find your emails. Separate them with a single space.

Find Gmail Emails Received After a Specific Date

If you'd like to see the emails you have received after a specific date, make use of the following query:

after:2021/11/12 to:me

Find the emails received after a specific date.

This query retrieves all emails sent to you after November 12, 2021. To include the sent emails in the search results, remove to:me from the query.

Related: How to Make Using Gmail Better

Find Gmail Emails Received Before a Specific Date

Gmail also makes it easy to find the emails received before a specific date. Use the following query to do that:

before:2021/10/05 to:me

Find the emails received before a specific date.

This query finds all the emails you have received before October 5, 2021. To add the sent emails in the search results, remove to:me from the query.

Want to find your archived Gmail emails? There are a few workarounds to do that.

Related: How to Find Archived Emails in Gmail

Find Gmail Emails Received Between Specific Dates

By combining both "before" and "after" search operators, you can find the emails received between two specific dates.

Here's what a combined query looks like:

after:2021/09/01 before:2021/09/26 to:me

Find the emails received between two specific dates.

As you can see, the query finds all the emails sent to you between September 1, 2021 and September 26, 2021. Remove the to:me part to find all your emails and not just the ones you have received.

And that's all there is to finding emails by date in your Gmail account. We hope it helps you find the exact emails you have been looking for!


Is your Gmail storage almost full? If so, check out some of the ways to free up space in Gmail.

Related: The Fastest Way to Free up Space in Gmail