A method for software application optimization using natural language-based queries. The method includes obtaining a user-provided query. The user-provided query includes a constraint to be used for an identification of an application element that matches the constraint, from a set of application elements of a software application. The user-provided query is a string that includes a human language sentence. The method further includes deriving a formalized query from the user-provided query by translating the user-provided query into a syntactic construct of segmented sentence elements and obtaining the application element that matches the constraint. Obtaining the application element that matches the constraint includes deriving a pattern representation of the user-provided query from the formalized query and identifying the application element that matches the pattern representation of the user-provided query from the plurality of application elements.