Reserved and common search operators

This document lists the reserved and common search operators available within Google Cloud Search. Reserved operators have Google Cloud Search-specific use and cannot be used in your schema. Common operators are common to other Google Workspace apps, such as Gmail, but can be used in your schema. Be cautious when using common operators, because users who are familiar with their use in other apps might be confused by a different implementation in Cloud Search.

Reserved operators

You cannot use any of the following operators in your schema:

Operator Definition
source Find content from a particular product or data source
site Find content from a particular site.
inurl Find content from a particular url.
contenttype Find particular types of content, such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, images, folders, and attachments.
mimetype Finds content based on the original mimetype.
type Find particular types of content, such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, images, folders, and attachments.
owner Find content you own or that’s been shared with you. For content originating from third party repositories, the only valid value is owner:me. For Google Workspace content, you can also use owner:identity where identity can be the owner's name, username, or email address.
from Find content from a specific person who sent or created the content. This operator is used as an alias for owner.
before Find content modified before a certain date, using the format YYYY/MM/DD.
after Find content modified on or after a certain date, using the format YYYY/MM/DD.
createddatetimestampbefore Find content created before a certain date, using the format YYYY/MM/DD.
createddatetimestampafter Find content created on or after a certain date, using the format YYYY/MM/DD.
itemsize Find content with a particular size specified in bytes.
itemsizelessthan Find content less than a particular size specified in bytes.
itemsizegreaterthan Find content greater than or equal to a particular size specified in bytes.
in The use of this operator has not been determined.
is The use of this operator has not been determined.
has The use of this operator has not been determined.
to The use of this operator has not been determined.

The last four operators in the table are reserved, but do not yet have a specific definition.

For information on how users use a specific operator, refer to Narrow your search.

Common operators

You may declare the following operators in your schema. To minimize user confusion, declare these operators so their usage is consistent with the definition in the following table.

Operator Used by Definition
size Gmail Find items larger than the given size in bytes.
larger Gmail Find items larger than the given size in bytes. Synonymous with size.
smaller Gmail Find items smaller than a given size in bytes.
older_than Gmail Find items older than a given date.
newer_than Gmail Find items newer than a given date.
subject Gmail Find items with a specific subject or title.
label Gmail Find items with a given label.
list Gmail Find items from a given mailing list.
cc Gmail Find items with the given recipient in the cc field.
bcc Gmail Find items with the given recipient in the bcc field
deliveredto Gmail Find items delivered to the given email address.
category Gmail Find items with a given category.
title Drive Matches item with a given title.
app Drive Search for items that can only be opened by a specific app.
mailthreadid Gmail Matches items with the given thread ID.