Gmail's search gets suggestive with labs add-on

Gmail has released a new labs add-on (the fifth this month) that tweaks the service's search tool, providing suggestions for contacts and search modifiers as you type. This means that when searching for messages from a specific person it will automatically begin to provide suggestions of who you're trying to search for, just like it does when you're composing a new message.

What's nice is that this same system also works for remembering any of Gmail's search operators, so you can do things like type in what date range the message should be from, what kind of media an attachment should be (like videos, pictures, or zipped files), or simply look up things by file name. All the while it sticks the modifier in there for you, and without you having to remember the proper nomenclature or where to stick the semicolons and parenthesis.

While you could get many of these options just from using Gmail's advanced search tool, I like this add-on because it puts everything in main search bar, which sticks with you no matter what you're doing on the service. You can find it near the bottom of the Gmail labs add-on page.

With the auto-complete labs add-on flipped on you can simply start typing and it will start giving you suggestions for your search. This includes search operators, which you see below the list of recommended contacts.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

[dajunga]

Not to say that this was a waste of time .. but being that the existing Gmail search does not do partial word matches (after all these years!!!) you would think this would be much higher on their list of things to do for Gmail :-\

[the_ricochet]

I like the idea of automatic search modifiers. Let's hope it's as good in execution as it is in idea form.

[AndrewRich]

This is a really terrific addition to Gmail! Well done Labs.

[seoarhey]

Just post few features of Gmail on my seo blog - http://seopulse.ru. But this post on russian.