Search for two words near each other

How it works

AROUND followed by a number sets the maximum distance between two words: holiday AROUND 10 vacation searches for both within ten words of each other.

Examples

• holiday AROUND 10 vacationOpen in Gmail ↗

  "holiday" and "vacation" within ten words.

• "secret AROUND 25 birthday"Open in Gmail ↗

  Same idea, with "secret" required first.

What it does well

• Finer than an exact phrase when you don't know the words in between.

What it does badly

• The order of the two words is only enforced when the query is in quotation marks: Google states that the quotes keep the first word first.Documented by Google · Gmail Help: search operators

See also

• " "Searches for words in that precise order, side by side.
• subject:Restricts the search for a word or phrase to the message's subject line.