If you've ever wished you could search all your mail and documents from the main Google.com search box, your day has arrived. Google is expanding its experimental integrated search features to make your mail and documents part of the Google.com search results.
Sign up for the trial and when you're logged into your Google account you'll be able to search Gmail and your Google Drive documents directly from the Google search page. Your mail and documents appear in a sidebar next to the usual results from around the web.
Google kicked off the Gmail search results on Google.com earlier this year with a limited "field trial." Now, after what Google Software Engineer Bram Moolenaar (perhaps best known as the creator of Vim), calls "very positive feedback from those of you testing it out," the company is expanding the universal search feature to a wider audience.
As Moolenaar writes, "when you search on Google.com, your results will include relevant information and messages from Gmail ... and now – new in this field trial – also files, documents, spreadsheets and more from Google Drive."
The updated trial also brings Google's instant search results to Gmail. When you search in Gmail links to relevant email will pop up in the search bar as soon as you start typing – just like Google.com.
The new integrated search still isn't the default behavior by any means, but it certainly looks like Google is moving in that direction. For now you'll still need to sign up for the trial if you'd like to experiment with it. Note that the trial is only available in English and to those with @gmail.com addresses. (Google Apps accounts are out of luck for now.) If you opt in and decide you hate it, you can always go back to the sign up page and turn universal search off.
