Wait, what? The search function in gmail is terrible? What do you think they went out and built a new algorithm just for gmail instead of using their tried and tested one?
Speaking anecdotally of course, I've found the gmail search function to be very good. Add in operators as you would in regular searches and it's as useful as regular search--but in the context of email.
Well, to be fair, i end up using the apps version of gmail for work far more than my regular account.
The most recent example dealt with a specific admin type email i needed for forms. it is an email with two fairly distinctive words. As far as i know, it's the only email i've ever received with those two words.
The top 20 emails returned by search don't contain both words.
perhaps this is a weird or unfair use case. There's a fair amount of institutional knowledge tucked away in that account. Often, i need complicated constraints to coerce the search to bring forth my data.
Don't know if it'd help (and not to suggest you didn't try), but sometimes quotes can help on that front. Also, can't speak to the apps version--haven't used it myself.
it's, okay, i guess. i find it odd it returns emails that don't contain all of my criteria first. I understand the desire for including more recent results. Probably, it's a lot more economical to not really search all my mail, and just provide a set from a recent pool of stuff.
Try subscribing to a high volume mailing list like bugtraq or linux-kernel. For a search to yield any meaningful results you have to add -label:bugtraq -label:linux-kernel. for. every. single. search. Still, for the other 99.9999% of users who don't subscribe to mailing lists I'm sure it's great.
I think the current gmail search is a lot better than what it was a few months ago.
I still wish they did page numbers for search results or something like that. (I'm aware of the manually editing the url hack, but it's not the same experience.)
