Moving Towards a Better Use of Gmail [part2]

Im back, as promised, and this time I will teach you about Filters and Labels. I also want to remind everyone that this is not the only way of setting these things up. If you need or have a different approach, you can leave a comment or link for the readers. The screenshots are a little small so if you really want to see what is going on, you can click on them and you will be directed to the full screen version.

I am going to use a sample mailbox that I've setup a while ago to catch my spam and random subscriptions. Here is what it looks like before we start:



Now I want to add a label to all the messages from TechRepublic.

-First I select the messages that I want to label( I end up missing some but I'm just using it as an example so don't freak out)

-Then I create a label by clicking on the More Actions drop down menu and choosing New Label. Click here for the video demonstration.

Unfortunately there are a few limitations to this method:
1 You have to manually pick the emails you want labeled.
2 You would have to repeat the process every time you get new email.

If this is fine for what you want to do, so be it. For anyone else who thinks this would not be the best setup, I present to you: Filters.

Filters can do a whole lot more than just selecting your messages and labeling them. You can set filters to forward your filtered email, to delete them, to mark them as unread, to star them, to archive them and even arrange that they are never sent to your spam folder.

Ok so let's create a filter that will:

-Label messages from kayak.com
-Skip the inbox(only applies to future messages). That way I don't have to see them when I login. And I can click on the Kayak label anytime I feel like checking flight discounts instead.

Click on the Create a filter link next to the Search the web button:


Next we set the criteria. I entered kayak.com both in the From field and in the Has the words field. Then I clicked on Test Search to see which messages would have been filtered using my criteria.


If the results aren't picking up everything you want, try to add more criteria. When you are satisfied with the results, you can click Next Step.

Next we decide what to do with our filtered messages.
As you will see in the image below, I chose:

• Skip the Inbox (this only applies to future messages)
• Apply the Label (Kayak, you can actually create a label right from the drop down menu)
• Apply filter to the 33 conversations below(to make sure the previous messages get labeled too)

Then I click on Create filter and my filter has been created. The screen that follows allows you to edit, delete, or create new filters. You can access that page anytime by clicking on the settings link in the top right corner, then selecting the filters tab.

If you guys have any questions or comments just leave me a note. If you need to email me, my email is raphsabb+blog [at] gmail. See you next time.