
Ask HN: when is Google Instant coming to my GMail search? - jfi
Show me my matching mails real time a la Google Instant. This would be very useful.
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abossy
Google Instant will most likely never come to GMail search. The speed at which
GMail queries are returned simply aren't fast enough for real-time search, and
it's unlikely Google has a monetary incentive to improve the speed to this
level. Remember, GMail search is a feature; Google Search is a business.

There are a few reasons GMail search is slow:

* GMail searches must search a genuinely real-time index of your e-mails. An e-mail must be searchable the instant it's created. Web search has an inherent latency which allows Google to do offline processing to improve search speed.

* It follows that, GMail must be an exact match, while Web search is an approximation.

* Popular queries can't be cached and returned quickly.

Source: [http://www.quora.com/Why-does-Gmail-take-longer-to-search-
my...](http://www.quora.com/Why-does-Gmail-take-longer-to-search-my-inbox-
than-Google-takes-to-search-the-entire-web?q=gmail+search+)

~~~
cmurphycode
Would you accept an approximation for results as you type, with the true,
exact search happening when you stop typing? I think this would be very
useful, especially since I don't need to search the absolute real-time index
of my emails 99% of the time. It would probably confuse users, though- having
a new result pop in .5 seconds later.

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ab9
Gmail doesn't even have substring search (e.g. searching for "hack" will not
find instances of "hacker"). I think that would be a prerequisite for Instant-
style searching.

~~~
avar
No it wouldn't, instant search doesn't search substrings, but strings it
_thinks_ you are about to type in.

You could create a lookup table of those for each GMail account in the
background even if you didn't have substring search.

~~~
ab9
True. But it's worth noting that those predictions are sufficient for a slow,
partially-working substring search. Gmail could search for the n most likely
completions of your query terms in addition to the normal search, and collate
the results.

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chris24
I don't know about you, but I find that Gmail searches take quite a bit longer
to process than web searches because they can't be cached and they cannot have
_any_ latency. Sometimes it takes multiple seconds just to process a
seemingly-simple search of my mail.

How would they be able to really quickly (instantly) perform accurate and up-
to-date searches of mail if a single query can take multiple seconds in its
current state?

~~~
alexitosrv
What is more, I actually find annoying the lame state of search in Gmail,
given their all-mighty web counter part. Pretty slow, in general. No caches.
No query expansions. No query suggestions. No nothing more than simple
operators (and, or, in:, label:, after:, before:, and others I don't remember)
and thats all.

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dchest
Suggest a feature for Gmail:
[http://mail.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=suggestion...](http://mail.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=suggestions.cs)

~~~
beaumartinez
To suggest Google Instant, scroll down to the bottom, and under "I have
another idea", select: Interface and settings > Gmail interface > Search
options. I've just suggested "Google Instant mail search".

(I assume you can just suggest under Other, but I think Search options makes
the most sense.)

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zandorg
I wrote a Windows application which reads in all your email files and creates
an SQL database/index, along with a Lucene index for searching the email body.

You can do an SQL wildcard search like SELECT * from mymail where SUBJECT like
"%Gmail%", and the results are more-or-less instant.

I use it all the time for my own purposes, but nobody wants to beta test it.

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Zev
I would settle for GMail to be usable again, let alone improved. As of right
now, I can't send or reply to any email's from any account[1], I can't search
within my emails, I can't view emails that aren't on the front page anymore or
are archived, etc.

Its not a matter of it being slow; its a matter of clicking a button before
lunch, and the page still not being loaded when I sit down again
afterwards[1]. And it happens on three different accounts; one @gmail, one
free Apps and one paid Apps.

1\. Wired connection, its not timing out or anything like that.

~~~
melvinram
Really? My Google Apps email has 57930 emails in it and if I search for
something, I can usually get the results back in 3-4 seconds.

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sachitgupta
Cloudmagic does just that! I've been using it for about a week, works really
well.

Here's the link: <http://www.cloudmagic.com/>

~~~
VMG
no linux support :(

~~~
patrickaljord
<http://www.greplin.com> is better if you trust them.

~~~
evergreen_25x
How is greplin better than CloudMagic?

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jacobbijani
How would anyone here have any idea?

~~~
code_devil
I was thinking the same when I saw this question posted on the main HN page. I
guess it could have been worded differently and not be an ASK HN When ?

~~~
jlees
Shoulda been 'Ask HN Googlers', and the answer'd be 'no comment' either way.

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xentronium
Good chance to get a job at google. Be quick!

