Automate Your Way to Productivity with Gmail Labels & Filters
One of the biggest and yet unnecessary barriers mentioned when moving to Google Apps and specifically Gmail, is that there are no Folders. We're confident that given enough time and brain power, we could come up with a use case that makes using Folders more valuable than Labels...but it would be a waste of energy. If Folders are your kryptonite, then go ahead and keep using Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook but we're warning you, Labels take the pain out of email management and give you hours back in your day.
Don't believe us? How many minutes a day, hours per week, days per year do you spend pursuing a clean and tidy inbox? How many times have you come back from vacation to an overflowing inbox and were tempted to "select all" "delete"?
Recently, we've come across a stream of people that were hell bent on using Folders, oblivious to the power of Labels or seem too busy managing Folders to realize there's a faster way of doing things. If you think you have a Folder structure that can't be made more efficient with Labels, shoot us an email and tell us about it...we're always up for a good challenge.
Example: Twitter Follow Messages
Truth be told, we're big Twitter users and while we know there's an option to turn-off follow notifications, we sort of like knowing there's a place we can go to see who's following us. So for this tutorial we're going to automate the labeling and filtering of our Twitter follower messages, so that they never see our inbox but their safely stored out of sight, for later prowling.
Take a look at the email message header. Notice that the email is from @Postmaster.Twitter.com
Create a Label
In the left navigation of your Gmail, click the more button to see the Create new label option
Name the Label
HOT PRO TIP: Use short descriptive names so that your Label names don't wrap. For instance, we could shorten by using Twitter Msgs.
1. As you can see, after you create a Label isn't much use by itself. Sure you could drag messages from your inbox to the Twitter Messages Label but that's far from automation and gets painful after about 30 seconds. Instead, lets automate our email and send all the messages from @Postmaster.Twitter.com to the Twitter Messages Label...both past and future messages!
2. Take a moment to add a touch of color to your label. Coloring a label is a fantastic way to stay organized. Use the Red/Yellow/Green method to show what's Good, At Risk or In Danger to prioritize your folders.
IMPORTANT: It's also important to understand that if a message that is put in a label is unread, the label will show the number of unread messages.
Create a Filter
In the top of your Gmail, click for the Create a filter link
Create Filter Search Criteria
Choose appropriate search criteria for your Filter.
For our purposes, we're going to paste in the @Postmaster.Twitter.com in the From field.
You can get very creative with these fields, so have a go at it but before you move on click Test Search to get a sense for the search/filter results.
Because every user and business is different we aren't going to go into the various filter methods but keep one thing in mind... Gmail doesn't store multiple messages like desktop clients do, instead it attributes labels, so you can have a single message that can be tagged in several different Labels by numerous Filters.
Test Filter Results
Our Filter for @Postmaster.twitter.com returned a bunch of messages.
Choose Next Step and apply a few actions to the Filter
Choose Filter Actions
Email automation can be a rather personal task, so you should try a few different actions to get a feel for what you're going to need.
For our purposes, we want everything from @Postmaster.Twitter.com to
1. Skip the Inbox: We don't want these messages cluttering our Inbox
2. Mark as read: We don't really need the dreaded "123 unread messages" hanging over our head.
3. Apply the label: We want these messages to be tagged with the Twitter Messages Label
IMPORTANT: These particular configurations are good when you don't really need to "read or see" the message you just want to make sure is labeled for later use. Alternatively, you could uncheck the Mark as read option which mean you'll see the number of messages "unread" in your left navigation pane.
4. If you have existing messages in your system like we did, you'll want to apply the Filter to the messages already in your Gmail.
Finished Filter
If you ever need to edit or delete a filter just go to Settings > Filters and you're good to go.
IMPORTANT: We can't express enough the value and time savings Labels and Filters provide. Keep in mind that Labels and Filters ARE NOT permanent and you can grow into them as you see fit.
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