Search syntax
SuperMail does not use a Gmail-style operator language (no from:, to:, tag:, is:,
in:, has:, before:, after:, size:). The inbox toolbar has a single chip-based bar:
type for free-text search, click + Add filter for structured filters.
Free-text chips
Anything you type in the bar becomes a text chip when you press Enter or ,. You can have
several text chips - they all narrow the same query together.
The search box looks through:
- Subject
- Sender name and address
- Recipient name and address
- Message body (plain-text extract)
- Attachment filenames
Phrases in quotes, OR, and minus words to exclude something all work the way they do in many modern search boxes:
| Pattern | Matches |
|---|---|
invoice stripe | Both terms (AND) anywhere in searchable message fields. |
"exact phrase" | The literal phrase. |
invoice OR receipt | Either term. |
invoice -draft | invoice but not draft. |
There is no glob, no regex, and no operator prefix. from:alice matches messages that contain
the literal token from alice, not “messages from Alice”.
Structured chips
Pick from the + Add filter menu:
| Chip | Op | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| From | contains | substring | Sender name or address. |
| To | contains | substring | Direct recipients. |
| CC | contains | substring | Carbon-copy recipients. |
| BCC | contains | substring | Blind carbon-copy recipients. |
| Participant | contains | substring | Anyone in From / To / CC / BCC. |
| Subject | contains | substring | Subject line. |
| Body | contains | substring | Plain-text body. |
| Tag | is | tag | SuperMail tag the thread has. Multi-instance: add again for AND. |
| Has attachment | is | yes / no | Filters by presence of attachments. |
| Read | is | yes / no | yes = read, no = unread. |
| Starred | is | yes / no | |
| Folder | is | INBOX / SENT / DRAFTS / TRASH / SPAM / ARCHIVE | Overrides the current folder context. |
| Email type | is | marketing / non-marketing | Marketing = has unsubscribe header. |
| Sender | is | business / personal | From the contact classifier. |
| Received | after | YYYY-MM-DD | Only mail received on or after the picked date. |
| Received | before | YYYY-MM-DD | Only mail received on or before the picked date. |
Most chip types can only appear once at a time (the menu hides them while a chip of that type
already exists). text and tag are the exceptions and can appear multiple times.
Filters combine with text chips. For example: a text:invoice chip plus a
From chip of [email protected] plus a Received after chip of last month returns the
last month of Stripe invoices.
Sharing filtered views
Filtered views are saved in the address bar, so you can bookmark a search or share the link and come back to the same view later. Existing bookmarks from the older search format keep working.
Tips
- Looking for a single sender? Skip the search box, use the From chip.
- Looking inside attachments? We index attachment filenames, not their contents. There is no OCR.
- Looking for old mail you don’t see? Check your account’s sync range (Settings → Accounts → [account]); the default backfill is 30 days.
Roadmap
Operator-style query language and semantic / fuzzy matching are both on the roadmap. Today’s search is exact full-text plus structured chips - nothing more.