Gmail now searches your spam folder for missing emails

If you’ve ever misplaced an email in Gmail, it can be quite an ordeal to find it, especially if you don’t know where to start looking. You could run a search for it using the service’s search engine, but that’s not really reliable.

Did you know that besides your inbox (and your myriad of folders), the only other part of Gmail that’s been indexed is your trash? But what about your spam folder? Starting today, Gmail is offering a comprehensive search feature.

When you want to hunt down a missing email, just run a normal search and Gmail will provide results from your entire account, including your spam folder. Why it didn’t do that right away is a mystery, because we’ve all had an errant email wind up in the spam folder, only to curse the wind after many minutes lost searching for it and claiming it was never received.

Users will see a footer at the bottom of their search results if a match is found in the trash or spam folder.