How to change your inbox layout in Gmail – The Verge

gmail offers you several customizable formats, so many that you can have multiple gmail accounts and they can all look completely different. for example, you can have all your emails in one long list, you can separate your messages into multiple tabs, or you can divide your inbox into unread and read messages.

On top of that, there are other ways to organize your inbox, from adding a reading pane to creating your own categories to organize emails. this is how you can customize your gmail interface and explore all the options.

how to change your inbox layout:

• click the gear icon in the top right corner of the screen
• a “quick settings” sidebar will open on the right side of your inbox, which will allow you to adjust some settings. for example, you can adjust the display density, which controls how compact your messages appear. you can also choose the position of your reading pane and the type of inbox you have. (we’ll cover them later).

• Click “See all settings” at the top of this sidebar for more options
• Click the Inbox tab

next to “inbox type”, you have several options to choose from in the dropdown menu:

• “default” places your emails in the familiar separate vertical tabs
• “important first”, “unread first”, and “starred first” each split the inbox into two horizontal sections: the section you choose as first (important, unread, or featured) and then everything else
• “priority inbox” and “multiple inboxes” each create different sections within your email, and you can scroll down to see each section. (We’ll cover how to customize both settings later in this article.) Depending on the type of inbox you choose, the next steps will be slightly different.

• If you select the Default inbox setup, underneath “Inbox type,” next to “Categories,” you can check the boxes to decide how your emails are sorted. You can hover over each category name to see examples of what kinds of emails will be sorted into which tab. If you want your email to show up all in one tab, you can uncheck all of the boxes. (But you can’t deselect Primary.) You also have the option to “Include starred in Primary” so that any email you star will also show up in Primary, no matter what other category it falls into. And if you’ve found yourself annoyed by ads that are sitting on top of your various Inbox tabs, you can uncheck “Bundling in Promotions.”

• The options for “Important first,” “Unread first,” and “Starred first” are similar. Under “Inbox sections,” you can click on the Options button to select how many emails you want to appear in each section.

• If you select “Important first” or “Priority Inbox,” you’ll see an additional option that lets you change how Gmail counts your unread emails: whether that number reflects just the important unread emails, all of your unread emails, or a ratio of the important ones compared to all of them.

• You also have the option to add a reading pane, unless you’re in the Multiple Inboxes layout. After checking the box next to “Enable reading pane,” you can use the options below it to select the placement for the pane.

• In the “Importance marker” section, you can choose whether Gmail displays yellow tabs (indicating an important message) next to emails and whether Gmail assigns them automatically based on your activity.

• At the bottom of the page, there’s an option to “Override filters” or “Don’t override filters.” You can adjust those filters in the “Filters & Blocked Addresses” tab in Settings.
• When you’re done, don’t forget to click “Save Changes.”

How to configure Priority Inbox:

if you choose to go with priority inbox, you can use the dropdown menu next to each option under “inbox sections” to choose which categories to include and which to delete, how many messages from each section to include, and whether to hide a section when it is empty.

• To add another section, go to the Label tab at the top of the Settings menu
• Click the “Create new label” button at the bottom of the menu
• Type in a name for your label in the pop-up window. Then click “Create.”

• Go to the “Inbox” tab and click “Options” next to an inbox section
• Select “More options” from the drop-down menu
• Select the label from the drop-down options that appear

• Click “Save changes” at the bottom of the menu

how to set up multiple inboxes:

• select multiple inboxes under inbox type.
• to set up your inboxes, you’ll need to enter each category as a search operator, like es:starred or es :unread. you can create up to five sections.
• you can add a label for each category in the section name
• type the number of emails you want to display in each category, next to “max page size”
• to change the location of the sections, set it to “multi-inbox position”

Update February 10th, 2022, 9:40AM ET: This article was originally published on July 6th, 2020, and was updated to include the “Bundling in Promotions” option.