Gmail tip #2: The Filter Label Combo

In my last tip, I talked about using filters to automatically mark as read any emails you send to yourself.

It's taken me a while, because this is a whopper of a tip. I call this tool the Filter Label Combo. It's sort of a two-pronged attack for getting on top of your email. You may already use labels (and yes, Josh the Pen Pal, hopefully with colors, too!). You could use labels for a myriad of reasons, and I'd love to hear what those are for you.

Let me set the stage by giving examples for three approaches of the Filter Label Combo tool:

1. Cataloguing your life (i.e., things you send to yourself such as reminders, etc.): Filtering By Subject. For me, for example, I often send myself recipes, articles or titles of books I want to read, job postings, friends' mailing addresses, funny/interesting things about which I would like to blog, wines I like. I learned to make labels for those things, and I've set filters to automatically (in addition to mark as read) label them. So when I have a few minutes and want to read an article, I know where to go. Or when I need a quick dinner idea, I know where to go. But mostly, just because, I really, really, really like to catalog things. (Steph is like this, too. When she got excited about Systematic Theology, I told her, "You would like that. You like everything that has the word 'systematic' in it. I bet that if I gave you a bag labelled 'systematic garbage' you would love it.")

2. Filing incoming mail from sources other than yourself: Filtering by Sender. For example, I created a filter that added the label Trinity for anything that came in from an address that looked like this: "*@tiu.edu". The wildcard (*) serves as a placeholder for any series of characters.

3. Getting email that's somewhat from yourself; or from mailing lists: Filtering by Recipient. If you forward your email from your school account, this could be helpful, too. And same approach, but different means, for mailing lists.

I really think the whys are more important than the hows, in this case especially, because I think you're all smart enough to figure it out, but I'd like to break it down for those of you for whom it would be helpful. Here, then, are the hows.

Let's start with scenario 1: by Subject. What this presumes is that you'll pick a system so that you can filter. I now send all recipes to myself with the word "recipe" in the subject line, and I'll also put the name in it. So it'll be something like "recipe: chana masala." Here's a snapshot of my emails labelled "recipe." (Incidentally, you may notice that I figured out this method only recently. Also of note: you can still manually apply your label, even though you're now using a filter.)

So, first decide what will be the keyword (e.g., will you put a signifying word in your subject line?) and then proceed to create your filter. Go to Create Filters, and fill in the criteria, like such:

In the next step, you'll probably want it to be Mark as Read, and you'll want to Apply the label... You can create a new label at this point if needed.


Then click and you're done! Test it by sending a congratulatory email to yourself. Woohoo!

Now, to scenario 2: by Sender. Here's what the set-up might like look for the example I gave above. Vary it for your situation.

Lastly, scenario 3: by Recipient. 3a. You can also filter for emails that are sent to your school (or other) account and forwarded to Gmail. (You can ask me for help if you need.) You'd simply set the To in the filter to youraddress@yourschool.com. So any email that looks like it's been sent to your other address gets labeled "calmail" or whatever else you want.

3b. I set a roommate filter/label for emails sent to our house mailing list, males@lists (Maria, Anna, Lisa, Elizabeth, Sarah spells MALES). Similar idea: set the "To:" to the mailing list address and go from there, as such:

3c. Some of you may have heard about this tip from the Gmail blog that discusses how you can add a plus (+) to your account and have all emails still arrive in your box. So you can give away your address as youremail+cb@gmail.com when you sign-up for Crate and Barrel, and if you start getting junk mail, you can just auto-filter to delete. Or you can use it for certain organizations you join. Use the same principle in this Scenario to filter those emails.

Alright. Enough for now. Let me know how it goes! And with luck, there will be a third tip about Quick Links. Happy Gmailing!

P.S. Firefox spellcheck doesn't like my double-l spelling of "labelled" - and dictionary.com says its British spelling. What say you?