Google rolls out search chips to everyone, making it easier to find things in your Gmail inbox

A couple of months ago, Google added a new time-saving "search chips" feature to Gmail for G Suite users. These new filtering options make it easier for G Suite customers to search their inboxes using a series of new buttons and menus at the top of Gmail.

Now Google has started to roll out the same feature to non-paying users of Gmail, helping to make life a little easier for anyone who has ever struggled to find things in their inbox.

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Gmail's search chips came about as Google acknowledges that "we've heard from our users that searching in Gmail could be faster and more intuitive". When the company first announced the feature, there was no word about when -- or indeed if -- it would roll out to non-G Suite customers, but now the rollout has started with no fanfare.

So how do search chips work?

The feature is enabled by default, so you don't need to do anything to activate it. Just conduct a search in your Gmail inbox as you normally would, typing your search term in the text field at the top of your inbox. When search results are shown, you will see new buttons with blue text that you can use to further filter results and home in on what you're looking for. You can, for instance, show or hide emails from results that have attachments, and then further filter by type of attachment.

Other search chips enable you to exclude messages that come from chats, show only unread messages that match search terms, or limit results to a specific date range.

If you don't see this in your inbox just yet,  it's just a matter of waiting a little longer for Google to enable it in your account.