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Inbox overflowing with so much junk you can't tell what's the spam and what's the jam? Sounds like it's time to straighten up and fly right! Here's a few little tidbits on how to organize all of that electronic mail you receive so you focus on the important stuff.
Inbox overflowing with so much junk you can't tell what's the spam and what's the jam? Sounds like it's time to straighten up and fly right! Here's a few little tidbits on how to organize all of that electronic mail you receive so you focus on the important stuff.
Use a Priority Inbox
Use a Priority Inbox
From within Gmail, click the Settings gear icon, and then scroll down to the Inbox Type section.
Choose Priority Inbox, then click the Customize link below.
On the next page, change Important and Unread to just Unread.
Find Importance markers and set to No markers.
Scroll down and click Save Changes.
This inbox type will break your Inbox into 3 distinct sections: Unread, Starred & Everything else.
Unread contains the emails you've yet to read. Once you read them, by default, they'll move down to the Everything else section.
Starred is for messages you want to come back to later; like an email to-do list. Click the star to mark an email. Once your to-do is to-done, click the star again to remove it from the message.
Everything else is where messages that aren't unread or starred live.
Make Labels
Make Labels
Labels are kind of like folders, but smarter. Both options give you a quick way to sort an email, but an email can only live in one folder, while that same email can have as many labels as you'd like!
The easiest way to create a label:
Select the email you'd like to label,
Click on the tag icon, just below the mail search bar
Choose Create new.
Give your new label the name you'd prefer
Choose Apply.
That 's it! Your email is now labeled. You can apply existing labels to any and all other emails going forward, or create additional labels for more organization. Additionally, consider giving each label a unique color to help differentiate it from any other labels you create.
Create Filters
Create Filters
From within Gmail, click the Settings gear icon, and then choose See all settings.
Choose Filters and Blocked Addresses from along the top.
Click Create a new filter at the bottom of the page.
In the box that pops up you'll need to type in some identifying information—a name, email address, Google Group name, or something that is common across the emails you want to label.
Click Create filter.
You will be presented with eleven different options to apply to the emails you've caught in this new filter. At the very least choose Apply the label, and then select or create a label you'd like applied to your filtered list of emails.
At the bottom of the list of options is a checkbox to Also apply filter to matching conversations.
This will apply your new filter to any matching emails already existing within your inbox!
Choosing this option will label and sort those existing emails just like any new email that comes in.
Click Create filter.
In truth, you can think of filters as fancy Labels. If you find yourself labeling the same type of emails over and over again, then it's time to set up a Filter.
The trickiest part of filtering is figuring out the field and terms that will be both general enough to catch all of the desired emails, but specific enough to exclude everything else. Going back in and adjusting a filter is common, don't be afraid to try different filters! Filters are relatively simple to build, edit or even delete, and they won't typically affect your actual emails... unless you set them up to be automatically deleted.
*Pro Tip - click the little down arrow under an email sender's name to see details about that email you could use in a filter.
*Pro Tip - click the little down arrow under an email sender's name to see details about that email you could use in a filter.
For a more detailed look at each of these topics, check out these links to Google's Support pages:
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