Use filters in Gmail to organize your mails

[MITTAL PATEL]

If you are an avid user of Gmail then you must have come across the question : How to create folders in gmail? I have heard many asking the same question and to all of their disappointment, there isn’t folder creation in Gmail. Gmail says it prefers Labels over Folders to organize your mails and notes some specific advantages of Labels too. Read here. I have seen people struggling to figure out how they can leverage maximum benefits using Labels to keep their inbox neat and clean. Most of the people struggle with using Labels because it is new and even if you add Label to any mail, unlike moving to Folder, the mail will be in Inbox only with Label prefixed to it. Users think what is the benefit of using Labels if the mail remains in Inbox forever. The solution is you should Label the mail and then archive it. So it will be removed from you inbox and to check that mail either you can go to All Mails or simply go to Label you have added to that mail.

Another nice trick I found today to keep gmail inbox clean and organizing all the mails charmingly is to use Filters. Go to Settings and click on Filters tab to access filter settings. Now, click on Add new filter. There are various criteria you can filter your mails based on. ( I use From.) Give e-mail id of the sender you want to create filter for and click Next Step. On the next page, check Skip the inbox and also check Apply the label ( Select a label from drop down box or create a new one). Near to Create Filter button there would be a check box with message “ Also apply filter to *** conversations below”. Check this box if you want all the mails from that sender to be replaced from inbox to label. Finally, click on Create Filter and you are done.

What this Filter do exactly is : the checkbox of “Skip the Inbox (Archive it)” will directly archive the message as soon as it arrives so the mail will not be displayed in inbox keeping your inbox clean. You can check your mails by clicking on the Label names you have created. Label names will show how many unread mails are there under that Label. The check box of “Also apply filter to *** conversations below.” will move all your old e-mails of that sender from inbox to applied Label.

Today I taught this to few employees of Benchmark HR Solutions, where I serve as a web developer and consultant, and they are pleased to use it. Hope you will also like it.

Comments are invited...


Source : Mittal Patel's site

[Sam Morse]

Some great ideas Mittal!

Here's another one:
Among my many hats, I'm responsible for the mail server at our company. We were running spamassassin. Since over 90% of all emails are spam and since we had a number of email accounts, our mail server was being hammered and was having a very hard time keeping up with the spam filtering.

Also, server based spam systems need attention as new spam schemes crop up. It was taking too much time for me.

So, I decided to let Google be our spam filter. They most certainly have more time and personpower to keep up on the latest spam schemes. Basically, you can route all mail to gmail, Google is kind enough to filter it and send it to an email account on your server.

All this takes just a couple changes to some Gmail settings and your mail client.

If you set it up right, you can still email from [e-mail].

We now have almost all our email routed through the gmail spam filter. Our mail server is happy and I have one task off my plate.

[Tim]

I use Gmail but send it to Mozilla Thunderbird.. what a great program!