November 14th, 2007
Hidden Gmail feature lets you search by language
How many languages do you speak? If you are like most people, probably only one or two. If you are fluent in multiple, you may find it useful to keep messages written certain languages separate — or you may find it useful to create a filter that deletes messages in languages you don’t understand. One of my readers stumbled across a new way to search through his Gmail for messages composed in Spanish, and I have confirmed that the same technique works for most other languages too.
Unfortunately, English isn’t one of the supported search phrases, so I am unable to create a filter to catch foreign junk mail, but this simple search in Gmail shows you messages it believes is written in Spanish:
language:Spanish
What would be even better is if you could filter messages by origin. I really only care about email that comes from a few different countries, and considering most spam originates in places I haven’t even heard of, I wouldn’t mind a way to filter those out too.
[Thanks Alan!]
Garett Rogers 
is employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the wireless industry.
See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to Googling Google via Email alerts or RSS.
