Inbox search: replied to messages

[hillbilly63_uk]

We use Gmail with conversation view disabled. When a message is replied to, in the inbox view an arrow appears next to email to indicate a reply has been sent.

Is there a search operator that can check for the precense of this arrow? i.e. something like has:reply. 

I've not found it in the documentation that lists the available operators.

Thanks!

[CloudGuardians · Accepted solution]

Or you could create a script to get all the emails with "Re:" in the subject and then have the script apply the label "replied" to all of the emails with the same title as the emails that start with "Re:" but without the "Re:".

[CloudGuardians]

You should be able to use "Re:" in the subject field to find emails that have been replied (unless you've edited the subject to remove that). And then you can add other variables, as in any other filter (such as a specific sender, recipient, date range, etc.).

Note: this should find the reply, not the original email to which you've replied.

If you need help, let me know.

[hillbilly63_uk]

Hi, appreciate the response - it's the original email I'm after, not the reply message.  I want to be able to both search for and create a script that can identify emails that have been replied to.  

Gmail puts an arrow icon against emails that have been replied to, so it seems like it should be possible, but I can't find how to check for it via search queries or script.

[cryptochrome · Accepted solution]

There is no search operator for this. If you script this, you want to go for message headers. Replies usually (not always) contain the "in-reply-to:" header. All replies always contain a "References:" header. If it is empty or missing, it's not a reply. If it contains message ID numbers, it's a reply to the message with the given ID. 

[hillbilly63_uk]

Many thanks, that's useful information regarding the References header behaviour.

[CloudGuardians]

Maybe you can inspect the Gmail UI to see which element is added to the DOM of the webpage, and then use a script to import all the emails with that element into a Google Sheet.

[CloudGuardians · Accepted solution]

Or you could create a script to get all the emails with "Re:" in the subject and then have the script apply the label "replied" to all of the emails with the same title as the emails that start with "Re:" but without the "Re:".

[hillbilly63_uk]

Many thanks, I like the simplicity of this method, for a script newbie like me.