While Gmail’s search options do allow you to do basic searches for messages within a date range, it still doesn’t give you absolute control over the date part of the query. You have to select a range that is 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 6 months or 1 year from a certain date. Instead, use the basic search box and assign the date range directly from there.
1. Go to Gmail.
2. Go to the Search Mail textbox at the top of the page.
3. Input the text that you are searching for into the textbox. You can specify where you want the text located in the message; use from: and then the address of the desired sender or use to: and the desired recipient. Using subject: as a predicate will allow you to specify the subject line, etc. Now for the date portion.
4. By using after: and before: and a date formatted like YYY/MM/DD, you can specify a beginning and ending date for the range that you wish to be contained in the result set.
For example, let’s say we are looking for an email from a friend about an important meeting that we received sometime during the first of the year. Our search query would look something like this:
from:[email protected] subject:meeting after:2008/12/31 before:2009/05/01
5. Click the Search Mail button.
