Match either criterion

How it works

Join two criteria with OR to get the messages that match one, the other, or both. Curly braces do the same in shorter form: everything inside { } is treated as an alternative.

Examples

• from:amy OR from:davidOpen in Gmail ↗

  Messages from either person.

• {from:amy from:david}Open in Gmail ↗

  Same result with braces.

• has:yellow-star OR has:purple-questionOpen in Gmail ↗

  Messages carrying either of these icons.

What it does well

• Braces save repeating OR when you have many alternatives.
• Google's examples use it with from: as well as with has:.

What it does badly

Google documents no limits for this operator.

See also

• ANDKeeps messages that match all of the criteria.
• -Removes from the results the messages that contain a term.
• ( )Groups terms so an operator applies to all of them.