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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

by abossy 16y ago

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

cmurphycode 16y ago
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.
mattmcknight 16y ago
"GMail searches must search a genuinely real-time index of your e-mails. An e-mail must be searchable the instant it's created." That's not a significant difference in terms of searching. The index segmentation is not likely to have a significant impact for most queries, and the segments are likely combined often enough for it not to be a problem. It is real difference is that the infrastructure to support searching your one little inbox index just isn't there. It's probably not constantly loaded into RAM. It does cache queries though, try, "red" then "green" then "red". Another difference is that is shows well more than 10 results.
jroid 16y ago
But then, the amount of data that you search in gmail is a drop in the ocean compared to web search.

by abossy 16y ago

cmurphycode 16y ago

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.

mattmcknight 16y ago

"GMail searches must search a genuinely real-time index of your e-mails. An e-mail must be searchable the instant it's created." That's not a significant difference in terms of searching. The index segmentation is not likely to have a significant impact for most queries, and the segments are likely combined often enough for it not to be a problem. It is real difference is that the infrastructure to support searching your one little inbox index just isn't there. It's probably not constantly loaded into RAM. It does cache queries though, try, "red" then "green" then "red". Another difference is that is shows well more than 10 results.

jroid 16y ago

But then, the amount of data that you search in gmail is a drop in the ocean compared to web search.