Proton

Advanced Search Syntax

Reading
2 min
Category
Search and organize emails

Certain special characters can be used to execute complex logic when performing searches on your email metadata (the Subject, To/CC/BCC, and From fields).

It is also possible to Search message content(new window) if the feature is enabled.

Searching in Proton Mail

Logical AND is implicit between any two search keywords (so searching for hello world means a match for hello AND world). The other search operators are:

NameOperatorExampleExample Explanation
Logical OR|hello | worldMatches text containing hello or world
Logical NOT! or –hello !worldMatches text with hello but not world
Grouping()(cat -dog) | (cat mouse)Matches text with cat and without dog or cat with mouse
Phrase“”“hello world”Matches text with the keywords adjacent and ordered, such as hello world and hello world and universe but not hello brave new world. You may use * as a word placeholder — hello * * world would match hello brave new world
Proximity“”~N“hello world”~10Matches text containing hello and world with less than 10 words between them
Quorum“”/N“hello dear world”/2Matches text with at least 2 of the 3 words, such as hello dear and hello world.
hello there would not match, but hello there world would
Order“<<hello << worldMatches text with hello and world only if they appear in the specified order.
hello world would match but world hello would not
Start^^helloMatches text that begins with hello, such as hello world but not say hello
End$world$Matches text that ends with world, such as hello world, but not world peace
Wildcards* and ?h?llo w*dThe ? operator matches any single character, while * matches zero or more characters. The example search would match hello world as well as hallo word

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