Looking for emails from a particular sender, or all conversations with them? Find out here how to search Gmail for email from by sender, name, and email address.
First, Let’s Bang-Path Your Email Address
Yes,
- ☑ take your email address,
- ☐ exchange the ‘@’ for an ‘!’,
- ☐ delete everything from the back up to and including the first ‘.’ you encounter (presumably “.com”),
- ☐ place everything before the ‘!’ after it and
- ☐ everything that came behind it in front.
You have just turned your SMTP email address into a mock UUCP email address. (For instance, “user@ladedu.com” becomes “ladedu!user”.)
These email addresses were common in the early 1980s—when UUCP networking was common. Now, of course, you can barely send an email to such an address, let alone find emails from them in Gmail… which is very much unlike searching for messages from senders who use an ‘@’ email address.
This is easy:
How to Search Gmail for Mail from a Sender Using a Desktop Browser
Searching by Sender Name or Email Address
Time needed: 5 minutes
To find all emails sent by a particular sender in your Gmail account using Gmail search:
- Click in the Search mail field.
Gmail keyboard shortcut: With Gmail keyboard shortcuts enabled, you can press
/(forward slash) to focus the search field.
- Type
from:immediately followed by the sender’s name or email address.Examples: To search Gmail by sender for messages from “ladedu@ladedu.com” using the from: Gmail search operator, type
from:ladedu@ladedu.com; to search for messages from “Heinz Tschabitscher”, typefrom:Heinz Tschabitscher.
Precisely: You can enclose the sender’s name in quotation marks to make sure the match is exact; e.g.from:"Heinz Tschabitscher".
Partially: You need not type the full email address (or name); you can search for all emails from the domain “ladedu.com,” for instance, or all messages from senders called “Heinz.”
- Press Enter.
Searching by Sender Starting with an Email
To find all emails from a sender in Gmail beginning with an example email:
- Open a message from the sender.
- Click the More button (
) in the conversation’s toolbar. - Select Filter messages like this.
- Click Search in the pre-filled Gmail search field.
Mailing lists: If the message was sent through a mailing list, Gmail may use the list’s address instead of the sender’s. If this does not produce the desired result, do search using the address manually.
Finding All Emails Received from and Sent to a Contact
To find all emails exchanged with a sender (that is both emails you received from them and messages you sent to them) in Gmail:
- Click in the Search mail field in Gmail.
- Type
from:immediately followed by the sender’s name or email address. - Type
OR to:also followed by the sender’s name or address immediately.
Example: To find all emails exchanged with ladedu@ladedu.com, typefrom:ladedu@ladedu.com OR to:ladedu@ladedu.com.
Only you: To make sure only emails you sent to the address (and not messages sent to the address with you in the Cc: field, for example), usefrom:<sender> OR (to:<sender> AND from:me), replacing “<sender>” with the sender’s email address. - Press Enter.
How to Find Emails by Sender in the Gmail App
To find all messages sent by somebody in the Gmail app for iOS or Android:
- Tap the Search mail field in Gmail.
- Type
from:followed by the sender’s name or email address.
Examples: See above for examples. - Tap Search.
How to Search Gmail for Emails from a Sender: FAQ
Can I find emails by sender using simple HTML Gmail?
Yes.
To search simple HTML Gmail by sender:
- Type
from:followed by the sender’s address or name in the search field. - Click Search Mail.
Can I sort Gmail by sender?
No.
Gmail does not allow you to sort by sender.
You can
- use search to find all emails from a sender instead (see above) or
- set up Gmail in an email program using IMAP.
(How to search Gmail by sender tested in a desktop browser and the Gmail app 6.0 for iOS; first published November 2018, last updated April 2024)