> I think this is because it can only search on whole words. This is provably not true. Gmail supports stemming. If you search for [subject:does], you'll get p

> I think this is because it can only search on whole words. This is provably not true. Gmail supports stemming. If you search for [subject:does], you'll get plenty of emails with just "do" in the subject. Same with singulars/plurals. It used to be supported in the early years, then it was dropped (either too expensive or a limitation of a new backend) and finally it was brought back after another backend rewrite 8-9 years ago. If you really want wildcards, though, stemming won't cut it.