Let’s consider a hypothetical scenario. he logs into his gmail account and finds 17,758 unread emails. You tremble and break out in a cold sweat. if you find yourself doing this often, don’t worry because you’re not alone.
a study by loughborough university in which researchers followed a group of 30 government employees in the uk found that 83 per cent felt more stressed when using email. Furthermore, their stress levels, analyzed with saliva samples as well as heart rate and blood pressure monitors over a 24-hour period, peaked at times of day when their inboxes were the most crowded, it found. the study. Interestingly, the study also found that emails that were irrelevant, interrupted work, or demanded an immediate response, were particularly tiring, while those that came in response to completed work had a calming effect.
Not using email is not an option, so the only other option is to better manage your email account. Tidying up and organizing your inbox is a great idea, it still requires a considerable amount of time and effort. however, if you use gmail, a simpler alternative is to set up labels and filters to better manage your gmail inbox.
We’ve written about gmail labels before, so in this blog post, we’ll focus on how to use gmail filters to classify your emails automatically.
index
- so what are gmail filters?
- how do you create a filter in gmail?
- actions that can be performed using gmail filters
- edit or remove filters
- advanced filter actions
- essential gmail filters
so what are gmail filters?
filters in gmail are automation rules that allow you to redirect emails when they arrive in your inbox, saving you the hassle of manually sorting and managing emails.
for example, you can redirect certain newsletters from certain senders to a separate inbox, or send emails directly from certain sources to the trash. In Gmail, you can even use filters to add importance markers and labels of different types and colors. By deleting emails this way, you can free up space, reduce stress levels, and focus on the conversations that really matter.
how to create a filter in gmail?
There are two ways to create filters in gmail.
using the search bar
Go to the Gmail search bar, type in a keyword or specific email address you’d like to filter out and click on the gray triangle.
Clicking on the gray rectangle opens up a dropdown. This dropdown allows you to further refine your filter conditions. Once you’ve done that, click on the “create filter” option.
You can now choose what you want this filter to do. For instance, in this case, I’d like to have all emails that contain the keyword “SEO” and are from the email address [email protected] to go into my Updates folder instead of my primary inbox.
Clicking on the “Create filter” button will now create the said filter and all emails which contain the keyword “SEO” and are from the email address [email protected]om will now appear in my “Updates” folder instead of my primary inbox.
pro tip: remember to click the “also apply filter to matching conversations” checkbox. this way, all of your pre-existing emails that match the filter conditions will also be included within the filter conditions.
With this, you’ve created your first gmail filter and are well on your way to email nirvana.
create a filter from the configuration menu in gmail
click the “gear icon” at the top right of your gmail screen.
Pick ‘settings’ from the dropdown.
And then click on ‘filters and blocked addresses.’ This section shows you the existing Gmail filters which are applied to your Google account.
To create a new filter, click on the “Create a new filter” option.
This opens up a dropdown menu, which if you’ve read through the previous section looks familiar.
The rest of the steps to create the filter remain the same as in the previous section.
actions that can be performed using gmail filters
here’s a quick rundown of all the things you can do with gmail filters:
- skip inbox: archive an email so it doesn’t appear in your inbox.
- mark as read: as the name suggests, have an incoming email already marked as ‘read’.
- star it: have gmail mark the email as starred.
- apply a label: add a gmail-specific label to an email.
- forward it to: automatically forward an email to another email address email.
- delete it: send an email to trash.
- never send it to spam: tell gmail that never send a specific set of emails to spam .
- always mark it as important: automatically mark a specific set of emails as important.
- never to mark as important: tell gmail to never mark filtered emails as important.
- classify as: if you use multiple inbox categories, such as primary , social, updates, etc, tell gmail to automatically add a specific set of incoming messages into a category.
edit or remove filters
To edit or remove a filter, follow the same steps as above, ie. gear icon→settings→filters and blocked addresses.
This now shows you a list of all your existing Gmail filters. In addition to this, next to each filter, you see an option to either edit the filter or to delete it.
Clicking ‘edit’ opens a dropdown menu that allows you to refine your filter conditions.
For instance, I’ve now modified the filter and added a condition to filter emails containing the keyword ‘Confirmation.’ Clicking on ‘Continue’ takes you to the next dropdown which then allows you to modify the actions you want the filter to take.
For example, in this case the filter was used to add a tag to an email. I am now using it to send emails containing a particular keyword to the trash.
Clicking on ‘Update filter’ edits the filter conditions.
removing a filter is simple. simply click the ‘remove’ option next to the filter you want to remove, confirm that you want to remove the filter you’ve selected, and you’re good to go.
Pro-tip: Gmail allows you to take bulk actions on filters. Use the checkboxes on the left-hand side columns of the filters and choose one, many, or all of the filters.
advanced filter actions
By now, you’re probably an expert at creating and editing gmail filters and now you’re ready to take things to the next level.
import/export filters
By now, you’re probably an expert at creating and editing gmail filters and now you’re ready to take things to the next level.
If you’ve set up a number of email filters on one gmail account and want to use the same set of filters on another gmail account, you can do this using the import/export filter options.
To export a filter, let’s review some of the steps we followed in the previous section: gear icon→settings→filters and blocked addresses.
now use the checkboxes to select the filters and click the ‘export’ option.
Clicking on ‘export’ generates an XML file.
This xml file can be edited via a text editor or saved and imported to another gmail account to replicate the filter settings.
To import a filter, once again use the gear icon→settings→filters and blocked addresses path to access the list of all your existing gmail filters.
Click on the ‘import filter’ option, then upload your XML file.
Now click on the checkbox next to the imported filter and use the create filter option to start using the newly imported filters.
precise filters with operators
gmail supports several operators that allow you to perform precise search operations. these searches can be saved as powerful and precise filters. Here’s a quick rundown of gmail supported carriers and their features.
- and: By default, Google combines all search terms with an invisible and operator.
- for example, searching for dunder mifflin finds all emails that contain the words dunder and mifflin.
- for example, searching for dunder or mifflin finds all emails that contain the term dunder or the term mifflin.
- for example, searching for “the worst thing about prison was the dementors” finds all emails containing the exact same phrase.
- example, +dwights finds all emails that contain the term “dwights” but do not contain the term “dwight”.
- example, -dwight finds all emails without the term “dwight” in them.
- example, subject: (pam beesly) finds all emails that have the words “pam” and “beesly” somewhere in the subject line, but not necessarily as a phrase.
source
congratulations! you’ve graduated from gmail filter school. Now let’s move on to some must-have gmail filters for inbox nirvana.
essential gmail filters
automatic removal of spam emails
Preventing emails from reaching your inbox is a hundred times better than having to deal with them once they arrive in your inbox. you can always use the gmail lock button or even a smart tool like unroll.me
but sometimes you run into spammers who don’t honor your unsubscribe requests or senders you can’t block even if you wanted to. Or maybe you find annoying emails that get past spam filters and end up in your inbox.
one way to avoid them is to use a filter. you can:
- Create a filter based on the sender’s email address, and then
- tell gmail to delete those emails.
mark emails as read
all emails are the same, but some are more equal than others. That’s why it’s important to mark these less important emails as “read” so you can focus on the ones that really matter.
once again, you can:
- Create a filter based on the sender’s email address or keywords, and then
- tell gmail to “mark as read”.
move emails to specific categories
If you’re not using gmail’s tabbed inboxes, you probably should. Tabbed inboxes allow you to segregate your inbox into tabs like main, social, updates, etc., allowing you to focus on the emails that matter.
To enable tabbed inboxes, click the “gear icon” in the upper right corner of your gmail window and click “configure inbox” from the dropdown menu.
Configuring your Gmail inbox display Now click on the tabs you want to enable and hit save.
Selecting your Gmail inbox tabs In order to do that, you can:
- create a filter based on the sender’s email address or keywords and then
- choose the filter action, ‘classify as’ and have gmail move the emails filtered to a specific tab in your inbox.
automatically add labels to emails
We’ve already talked about how gmail labels are a powerful tool for organizing your inbox. you can read more about it here. you can use filters to automate the creation of labels so you can mark certain emails as important or for follow-up, etc.
to automate tag creation:
- create a filter based on the sender’s email address or keywords, and then
- use ‘apply a tag’ and select a tag from the dropdown menu.
automatically empty your spam inbox
Tired of manually deleting emails from your spam inbox on a regular basis? you can create a filter to automatically delete all emails that gmail sends to your spam inbox.
to do this,
- Go to the gmail search bar and click the gray triangle.
- In the dropdown menu, navigate to the “has the words” field and type is: spam.
- click the “create filter” button.
- use the filter action “delete it” and confirm the filter creation.
summarize
giving up email is not an option. using gmail filters the right way is probably the best thing you can do to remove noise.