How to view only unread Emails in Gmail?

Here’s how to filter out only the unread messages in Gmail

If you receive a large number of Emails every day then it is possible that some important emails might be buried in your inbox unopened. Thankfully, Gmail allows you to filter in such a way that it shows you the unread emails only while hiding the emails you have already read or opened.

Basically, there are two methods by which you can see the just the unread emails in Gmail. You can select either of them depending on how you want to find the unread messages. However, it doesn’t matter which method you select the Gmail will not only show you the message you haven’t opened but also the messages you have opened but marked as unread.

How to see unread messages on Gmail First?

There is an entire section in Gmail dedicated to the unread messages, you just need to open it and view the unread messages. Opening this section will shift all your unread emails permanently to the top.

1. First of all, click on the setting gear icon from the top right corner of the Gmail inbox page.
2. Click on “Settings”.
3. Open “Inbox” tab.
4. Open the “Inbox Type” drop-down.
5. Select “Unread First”.
6. Now, Go to the “Inbox Sections” and click on the “options” drop-down next to the unread.
7. Choose the number of unread messages you want Gmail to show up at once. You can select 5, 10, 25 or 50 unread messages to show up first in your inbox.
8. Scroll down and click on “Save Changes” from the bottom of the page.
9. Now, an “unread” drop-down will appear just below the menu button in your Inbox home page.
10. Click on “Unread” to read or hide all the unread emails.

Note: All your unread messages will show under “unread”, the messages you have already read will appear in “Everything else” section just below the unread.

By this filter, you not only have the “unread” messages at the top but you can also have “Important” or “Starred” messages first. All you need to do is select the appropriate option in the “Inbox type” drop-down in step 4.

How to Search Unread messages in Gmail?

It is not necessary that you would have the unread messages in your inbox folder only. You may have some unread messages in your Gmail folders as well. The method we have mentioned earlier in this post will let you check the unread messages in the inbox folder only. In order to find out all the unread messages in any folder of Gmail, you need to follow the steps given below:

1. Log in to Gmail account and open the folder in which you want to search the unread messages.
2. Type “is:unread” in the search bar available in the top of the window and press enter.
3. Now, all the unread messages in that particular folder will appear and every other email in that folder will automatically hide.

By this method, you can search all the unread messages in any folder of Gmail. Alternatively, you can simply type “in:folder name is:unread” to search the unread messages in any folder directly from your Gmail inbox home page.

For Example: If you want to search unread messages in the trash folder then there is no requirement to open the trash folder. You can directly type”in:trash is:unread” in the search bar available at the top of your Gmail home screen and the all the unread messages in trash folder will appear.

Here are some other useful search criteria to find unread emails in Gmail.

• You can find the unread messages between particular dates as well. For example – if you want to search unread messages between 28^th December 2017 to 1^st January 2018 then you need to search “is: unread before:2018/01/01, after 2017/12/28”.
• Similarly, you can find out any unread message from a particular email address as well. For example – if you are looking to find out unread message from abc@example.com. Then you need to search “is:unread from:abc@example.com”.
• You can also search using the name of the user instead of email address. For example- if you are looking for unread messages in Gmail from a sender named “Jhon”, then you need to type “is:unread from:Jhon” in the search box.
• You can combine all above-mentioned search criteria as well. For example – If you want to find out an unread email from Bank of America before 1^st July 2018 in a custom folder named as “banking”, then you need to enter following command in the search box.

“label:banking is:unread before:2018/07/01 from any@emcom.bankofamerica.com”.