How to Sort Gmail by Sender on the Web
There are three different methods to find emails from a particular sender in Gmail, each depending on the specific details you recall about the messages you're searching for.
📌 Important: Keep in mind that Gmail organizes emails by date by default and does not offer a direct feature to sort messages by sender. To see all your messages sorted by sender, you will need to use a third-party tool such as Clean Email. For comprehensive guidance on how this can be achieved, click here for detailed instructions.
Method 1: Sort by Sender in Gmail using ‘Find Emails From’
The easiest way to sort Gmail email by sender is by using the “find emails from” function. This method only requires you to have one message from a specific sender pulled up, meaning it’s a great way to search for a previous email from a coworker who frequently emails you.
To use this method:
- Find the message from the person you want to see emails from, then right-click on the message.
- When the drop-down menu appears, click Find Emails From.
- You’ll now see all the emails from that specific sender — even if they’re in the trash.
💡 Note: This method does not work in the Gmail mobile app on both iOS and Android devices.
Method 2: Sort by Sender in Gmail through the Search Options Menu
What if you're searching for a specific email from a person who hasn't sent you a message recently enough for it to be easily visible? For instance, imagine you need to find an email from your boss containing vital contact information, sent over 7 days ago. In this case, the Search Options Menu in Gmail can be quite helpful.
To use this method, simply:
- Type the email address you need into the search bar at the top of your Gmail inbox and hit Enter.
- You will then see all emails from this sender. To further refine your search, you can use additional criteria available below the search bar. These options allow you to sort the results by the date the email was sent, whether the message has an attachment, or if it is sorted by unread, and more.
- Select the criteria that apply to your search (e.g., your boss sent the email more than a week ago, or the email contains a PDF attachment) to view more specific results.
If this method doesn’t narrow it down enough for you, that’s okay — you can instead use the Advanced search feature. This can be especially helpful if you remember some of the content in the email (e.g., you remember that your boss mentioned a colleague’s name). By entering specific data, you can narrow the results much more.
Use the Gmail search options menu by following these steps:
- Instead of typing anything into the search bar, click on the Show Search Options button on the right side of the search bar.
- A pop-up window should appear with multiple different search criteria. Use this to enter any data you know, like the subject line, words in the body of the message, a sent date, or other items that may help you narrow it.
- When you’re done, hit Enter or click the blue Search button located in the bottom-right corner of the pop-up window to get the specific email from that sender.
- You can also create a filter with your search by clicking on the Create filter button in the bottom-right corner of the pop-up window. This allows you to automatically apply certain actions (e.g., 'Star it') next time you receive an email that matches the specific criteria.
Unfortunately, you may not always know the sender’s address, yet you might still want to sort your emails by sender. In such cases, use the boxes in the advanced search to set parameters for finding the email(s) you're looking for. For instance, you might recall certain words from the body of the message or remember that it was sent two months ago. The more details you can recall, the better.
Still not sure where the email is? Follow our guides on how to sort Gmail by subject, date, and name and how to sort Gmail by size.
Not Every Unsubscribe Button Works
Some senders ignore unsubscribe requests. Clean Email follows the link, fills out forms, and blocks those who don’t stop—even if the button is useless.
Try It for FREEMethod 3: Sort by Sender in Gmail with Partial Criteria
Sometimes, you may only know partial information for your search but still want to know how to sort email by sender in Gmail. Luckily, this mail provider allows you to use the asterisk (*) as a placeholder for unknown criteria. You can use this anywhere in an email address to help narrow results without having the exact data right.
For example, you can use an asterisk as a placeholder for the name in the email, the domain, or anything else, like john.*@techcompany.com, john.deer@*.com, or even john.deer@techcompany.*.
So, let’s say you want to delete emails from former colleagues who have left the company so you can clear out space in your mailbox. To do this, you would just:
- Go to the search bar at the top and enter *@techcompany.com, then hit Enter.
- Under the search bar, use other criteria to help you narrow it down.
- Select any messages you want to delete, and remove them.
💡 Note: Similarly, you can use parentheses to group multiple keywords together for searching a subject line, etc. For example, subject:(dinner movie) will retrieve all emails containing the words dinner and movie in the subject line, while subject:(dinner OR movie) will retrieve all emails containing either the word ‘dinner’ or the word ‘movie’ in the subject line.
How Clean Email Can Sort Gmail By Sender
Clean Email is a popular bulk email cleaner that organizes all of your emails into easy-to-review bundles and allows you to remove, archive, move, label, and perform other actions on groups of messages with a single click, instead of selecting them one by one.
Compared to Gmail’s native filters, this email sorter app can easily organize your Gmail account by Sender / Subject / Date / Recipients, and more—on any device, whether you're using Android, iOS, or the web app.
Here is how to sort Gmail alphabetically:
- Sign up to Clean Email for free using your mail account.
- Let the app analyze your mailbox, and when it’s done, click the All Mail folder located in the Toolbar column on the left.
- Then click Group By… filter under the search box and choose Sender (name and email) or Sender Domain.
- Then choose the way you want your emails to be organized by clicking Newest on Top sorting option next to the Group By… filter. E.g., sort by Number of messages or Total size, and more.
Now your Gmail account is sorted by Sender in your preferred order, and it is that simple. No need to search for each sender manually using Gmail filters. Moreover, you can easily apply any action to the group of emails from one or several senders.
If, however, your goal is not to sort emails themselves but to see a list of all the senders you have ever received emails from and probably, to set up email rules for specific senders, there's this convenient Senders tab. This feature displays all your email senders, indicating the number of messages they've sent.
From here, you can easily manage your inbox by setting rules such as blocking a sender, muting notifications, or auto-deleting their emails. Additionally, you can prioritize important senders by starring them, ensuring their emails stand out in your inbox.
What’s more, the app can also unsubscribe you from newsletters and unwanted subscriptions with its Unsubscriber feature, block emails from senders from whom you would rather not hear again, and automatically apply certain actions to emails as soon as they arrive thanks to its powerful Auto Clean tool.
The app has been designed with your security in mind, which is why we never collect user data with any third parties, and it supports all IMAP-based email service providers.
How to Sort Gmail by Sender on Mobile
The good news is that you don’t need to log in to Gmail on your computer just to search your inbox for messages from a certain sender. You can simply open the Gmail app on your iOS or Android smartphone and complete the following steps:
- Launch the app on your smartphone.
- Log in with your username and password if prompted to do so.
- Tap on the search bar at the top.
- Type the email address or the name of the sender whose emails you want to display, and then click the search icon.
💡 Note: Unfortunately, the Gmail mobile app also doesn't support the feature to sort Gmail inbox alphabetically by sender, so you will need a third-party tool like Clean Email. Click here to learn how to sort Gmail inbox by sender alphabetically.
Why Do I Need To Sort Gmail by Sender
There are many reasons why you might want to group Gmail by sender. If you’re like most people, you probably receive hundreds of marketing emails each month. It’s not uncommon for marketing emails to represent over 90 percent of the storage space occupied by emails, which is why getting rid of them is one of the first steps you should take to clean up your inbox.
The problem is that marketing emails are typically mixed in with legitimate emails from friends, colleagues, and business partners, many of which may be very important and definitely not intended for deletion. If you tried to individually select every single marketing email in your inbox, you would most likely find the task very tedious, and there’s a strong chance that you would select at least a few legitimate emails by accident.
By learning how to sort by sender in Gmail, you can group all emails from a particular sender together and delete them all at once without also accidentally deleting emails that shouldn’t be deleted.
You may also want to learn how to sort emails in Gmail by sender to save time when forwarding emails to colleagues or when searching for a certain piece of information from a specific sender. In other words, learning how to sort emails by sender in Gmail significantly upgrades your email management toolbox, allowing you to better control the steady influx of emails and stay organized and productive in today’s digital day and age.
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Now that you know how to sort emails in Gmail, you can say goodbye to inbox overflow and organize Gmail better than ever before. Remember that Clean Email can also help you with other aspects of email management by grouping all of your emails into easy-to-review bundles and allowing you to apply various actions to them automatically once they hit your inbox.
Gmail Sort by Sender feature - FAQs
How do I filter Gmail by sender?
There are several ways you can sort Gmail email by sender, like performing a simple search, selecting another message from that same sender, or using the wildcard function to locate messages when you aren’t sure about the sender’s full email address.
Can you sort emails by name in Gmail?
Although you can search your Gmail by sender, there isn’t a way to sort your emails based on the senders exclusively. However, Clean Email can help you sort emails in many different ways, such as by sender name, date, subject line, etc.
Can you sort Gmail by sender alphabetically?
Unfortunately, Gmail does not offer features like this at this time. You can use the Clean Email app to sort Gmail by sender alphabetically. Just connect your mailbox to the app and select the necessary filter to sort your emails the way you need.
How do I sort Gmail by sender and delete?
Once you use one of the methods outlined in this article to sort your messages by sender, you can simply click to select the messages you want to delete like you normally would.
