Gmail Filters (Followed by a How To Guide)

I actually took my last test for the week today, so now I am procrastinating on writing a paper. This seems slightly ironic... (side note: I am always scared to use the words ironic or irony. I am pretty sure I know what they mean, but so are lots of other people... Except, that they don't...) On to the filters!

I know this is probably old news for lots of people, but there really isn't too much mention of this feature. With how easy it is to combine all your emails under one gmail account, this can be a very useful tool to utilize.

I figure I will first explain what Gmail filters are, and then I will provide some step by step instructions for setting them up if you need help (it is really, really easy). I will also continue to shamelessly copy cracked.com's picture humor in hopes that, instead of being mad, they offer me a job.

Plus, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Gmail filters have the standard ability to set up spam filters plus you can filter any incoming emails to a specified folder. Those emails can also be set as either read or unread. To determine which emails go where, several methods are provided. You can go by the sender's email address, who the email is addressed to, what terms are in a given email, and what terms are not in a given email.

For example, in my account I have folders like "Bills" and "Newsletters." Tired of the tedious process of clicking move and then clicking my bills folder (exhausted from even writing about it), I made a filter to send any emails from companies that bill me (electric, water, etc.) to the "Bills" folder. If a message arrives in that folder, there is a bold number next to the folder indicating how many unread emails are in there. This is also the way I manage my Newsletters and Receipts.

While this is cool (or maybe I am just lame) the above is not really super useful beyond making your email cleaner and more organized (which is still nice). Where this feature really shines is in the automatic organization of multiple accounts.

I have a lot of useless email accounts, I never seem to get around to deleting them. However, unlike me, many people legitimately have multiple accounts and they use them all. To illustrate how filters can help someone like this, I will pretend I use several of my accounts.

I have my original account, my IPFW email account, my short-lived band's email account (ctrl alt delete will never die!), one for The Petersen Political Party, and I have an account to use for "professional" situations (because something like "xxxdevourerofworldsxxx@gmail.com" is not the best contact email to give to a prospective employer or university).

Above: Exception to that rule

That is a lot of information coming in, and even similar emails (i.e. receipts), can be coming in for different purposes. One plane ticket receipt sent to you is for a personal flight and you want to archive it, another is a plane ticket for a business flight and you need to print it out and reimburse it. When you add a huge amount of email coming into your account, this can be overwhelming.

Without filters the setup is such that you log into one account, you can choose which address to email from, and any emails from any of the associated addresses arrive in the same inbox.

Using filters, you can set this up however you like. So, using the above examples and pretending that I actually get emails at all of the accounts, I can use filters to customize the organization for my own personal needs.

I go ahead and setup my filters so that both address and content are taken into account when sorting.

First, Gmail checks who the email is addressed to (main account, professional, band, political party, school). Then, it checks what folder it needs to go into. One day I get my personal water bill and also get a bill for one of my Petersen Party billboards on I69. Gmail sees that the personal email is addressed to my main account and that it is a bill. It is then filtered into my folder called "Personal Bills" and a bold number 1 appears next to the folder. Sweet! Bills! Once I recover from this excitement, I will notice that Gmail took the other email (addressed to The Petersen Party), saw it was a bill, and put it in the Petersen Party Bills folder, and a little bold number 1 appears next to that folder as well. Receipts for drugs and rock 'n roll materials automatically go into my Band Receipts folder and so on.

Even with my limited amount of emails, I still find it convenient to have all of my newsletters, etc. skip the inbox and go to the correct folder. I was also at the point where I realized that my phone notifying me that I had new email was pointless, as it happened every 20 minutes and was usually nothing. Some of that is spam needing cleaned up, but a lot of that is also things like groupons and other deals (I have a deals folder) or emails from various electronics vendors with information that is relevant to me. I don't like getting them every day, but I might be hungry one day, check out my current deals emails, and save some money since I didn't just unsubscribe.

The main reason I like Gmail filters is because I think they are cool. I don't know why. I just do. While the above explanations are looking at somewhat extreme cases (and those people are probably either already using some sort of system, or have gone insane) I would imagine that, for many people, this organization is still highly practical from both a time saving perspective as well as just making things simpler.

How to Use Filters

Making Folders (Gmail refers to them as labels, I use both terms here. They are the same).

Step 1: Login to your main Gmail account

Step 2: Open Mail Settings (Click on the "gear" icon in the upper right and from the drop down menu select mail settings)

Step 3: Under settings there are several tabs along the top, you should be on the "General" one. Click on the "Labels" tab

Step 4: The top section are the default, Google provided folders, at the top of the bottom section there is a button to "Create new label" click it

Step 5: A box pops up for to you name your new folder. Make as many folders as you need for your specific organization.

Note: You can also nest the labels in each other. I.E. Have a folder that is Work Email, within that folder you can make a Bills folder. Then another folder is Home Email, and you have a Bills folder within that one as well. Or a Bills folder, and Work Email and Home Email are folders in there. Whatever you want.

Now that you have places for email to go, you can tell Gmail what goes where.

Making Filters

Step 1: Click on the "Filters" tab and then on "Create a new filter" (alternatively, you there is a create filter link to the right of the search bar at the top of the page)

Step 2: You will enter the criteria into the box that appears at the top of the page. They are pretty self explanatory but I am not known for being concise, so here is an explanation if you desire.

From: Any email coming from addresses listed here will be sent to the specified folder

To: Any email who has an addre

ss listed as a recipient that is in this box will be sent to the specified folder

Subject: Any email containing the word or words listed here in the subject line will be sent to the specified folder (you can specify if it needs to be an exact phrase, just one word, etc. - more on that later).

Has the words: Same as subject, but if the words are contained in the body

Doesn't have: Same as subject, except if these words are NOT in the body, it will go to the specified folder

Finally, there is a check box to specify whether the email having an attachment is a required criteria for it to go to a certain folder

Step 3: You can hit test search and Gmail will identify emails (already in your inbox) that would have been filtered to the specified folder if a filter was in place. This is a good way to make sure you are getting the desired results

Step 4: Hit next, and yo

u will see a list of options with check boxes. Check the "Apply the label" one and select which folder you want the email to go.

I already think explaining the different fields was a mistake, so I am not going to explain these too. I think these are actually more straightforward anyway.

Step 5: All that you have to do know if hit create filter and you are done. You can also put a check in the box next to this button, which will move all those emails you saw during the "test search" step to the specified folder.

Post step (is that a thing?)

You can go back to filters and edi

t them if you want to add addresses, etc. By going to mail settings - filters - and then clicking edit next to the one you want to change

Things you need to know

The filter system works by the same rules that Google's search engine does. So here are a few tips if you are not already familiar with these tools.

Want multiple, different addresses to all go to the same filter? I.E. Emails from billing@comcast.net and billing@verizon.net both go to Bills folder

You need to use OR between the addresses (caps matter!)

From: billing@comcast.net OR billing@verizon.net

Also could be used like this:

Subject: Verizon OR Comcast

Use AND if you want an email to require both addresses to qualify for automatic sorting

To: husbandsmith@hotmail.com AND wifesmith@hotmail.com will only put emails with both of their emails (and yours of course, in order for you to have received it) into a folder

Quotation Marks for specific phrases

Subject: "Verizon Bill" OR "Comcast Bill"

That should be enough for most people.

Just so you are aware, if you have multiple fields filled out, it functions using AND. So if you have billing@comcast.com in the From: field, and Comcast in the subject field, a message from billing@comcast.com

with a subject line "It's money time" will not get sorted into the Bills folder. If you want to use the filter as though there was an "OR" between From: and Subject, you would have to make another filter (there is no other way that I am aware of). So Filter A would have a From: billing@comcast.com and Filter B would have a Subject: Comcast

It probably took me half an hour to write those instructions, and even if you have no idea what you are doing, you would probably have your entire operation set up in less than five. Craziness....

There has been quite a bit of space since the last picture, and I need pictures to detract from my sub-par writing, so I am going to go ahead and throw in one last picture.

This is one of my favorite meme images of all time. Probably because I didn't realize this until I saw it, but it is so true