We use Gmail filters to automate incoming mail. Skip incoming messages. Are you tired of the standard email design?

One of the most powerful tools Gmail is its filtering system. Oddly enough, it seems that few users of the popular email Google services use filters to improve performance Email. Filters can help automate many of the tasks you do every day and optimize your Mailbox in a way that displays only the emails you want to receive and removes the ones you don't want.

It's true that Google already provides some email filtering by default with categories and an inbox tab, automatic highlighting of "important" emails, and of course spam filtering. But creating your own filters will help improve your mailbox organization. new level and will allow you to spend less time organizing your emails.

Filtering Basics

Filtering is configured in Gmail in the “Filters and blocked addresses” tab in the settings menu. To access this option, you will need to open the web version of Gmail on your computer, as there is currently no way to set up filters from mobile application Gmail.

There are two subsections in this settings section: one for filtering email messages and the other for blocking messages. In this article we'll take a closer look at email filtering, although we can easily add email addresses to the blocked list using the appropriate option.

The first step in setting up a filter is to create certain parameters search. These options will be applied to your emails before they reach your inbox, so it's important that your terms are as specific as possible.

Here Gmail provides you with several fields to choose from to create the ones you need. search queries, you can fill in as many fields as you like.

For example, let's say you want to filter out all emails from your manager related to an important business project with a large investment. You can set up a search with the following conditions:

• your manager's email address in the "from" field;
• the name of the business project or part of it in the “contains words” field;
• Check the box "has attached files"
• In the last field, indicate the size of the attachment, say greater than 5 MB.

The next step is to establish what you want the filter to do. There are a lot of convenient options available here, from automatic email tagging to automatic deletion. As in previous step, you can combine multiple options into one filter.

Using the previous example, let's say you want to mark these emails as "PDF" and make sure they are as visible as possible in your inbox. In this case, it is worth setting up, for example, the following actions filter:

1. Mark selected messages with a star;
2. apply "PDF" shortcut;
3. never send to spam;
4. always mark as important.

Click "Create filter" and it will work in background, and optimize work with incoming letters that meet specified conditions.

Now that you know what a filtration system is and how it works, we present a few useful tips on mail optimization. Some of them have actually helped us automate our inboxes, reducing junk emails and classifying incoming messages so that they can be easily noticed.

Add labels to work and personal emails. If you use the same inbox for work and personal correspondence, you can automatically apply labels to relevant emails using a filtering system. Then your work emails will stand out in your inbox.

Highlight emails related to projects or events. For automatic selection most important messages In your mailbox, use labels, stars, and categorize messages in the filtering system.

Remove spam once and for all. It happens that we receive a ton of emails from the same group of email addresses, and no matter how many times we mark them as spam, they still keep coming. By setting up the appropriate filter, you can automatically place messages coming from these addresses into Spam or Trash.

Forward emails automatically. Of course, it's easy to forward an email manually, but sometimes it's worth taking a more subtle approach and using automatic forwarding some messages. The filter system gives you this opportunity.

Archive emails. Does your mom email you outdated and not particularly funny memes? Using the filtering system, you can mark these emails as read and archive them automatically upon receipt.

Of course, there are many other things you can do with an e-filtration system. Gmail, so if you're looking to streamline your inbox and automate some basic tasks, it might be worth exploring all its features.

When you receive a lot of letters from different recipients by email, over time it becomes difficult to find the ones you need from the old ones among these letters, if required. In this case, it is very convenient to sort letters by categories (folders or otherwise “labels”). In this article I will show how to do this using GMail as an example.

As an example. You often receive letters in your mail from the same addresses that you have to contact from time to time.

Yes, if something happens, you can try to find these letters by searching. This is easy to do, but you won’t always be able to find it. It is more convenient when letters are immediately sorted into the necessary folders upon receipt, or you manually sort them into these folders yourself. That is, you can set up mail filters so that letters from certain addresses immediately put into the right folders.

This is easy to do. Let's look below at how to create shortcuts in GMail and how to attach the necessary emails to them manually and automatically.

Exactly in the mail GMail folders are called “Shortcuts”. In principle, this is true, because all letters are stored in the “All Mail” section, and these same folders are links to the necessary letters.

Creating shortcuts (folders) in GMail

To create a shortcut, click on the corresponding link at the very bottom of the list of folders (inbox, sent, spam, etc.) on the left:

In the window that opens, you need to enter the name of the shortcut in top line and click “Create”.

If you have previously created several shortcuts, then you can specify under which of them in the list the new shortcut you create will be located by checking the “Place shortcut under” item and selecting the one you need there.

That's it, the shortcut has been created. Example:

Distributing emails according to the required labels in GMail

You can distribute letters to the desired labels in GMail either manually or configure auto mode. Automatic sorting letters by labels - this is setting up filters in your mail, i.e. Creation special conditions, depending on which the actions you need will be performed with incoming letters.

Manual distribution of letters

When you need to move one or more emails to one of the created shortcuts, just mark these emails in your inbox, and then select the shortcut to transfer by clicking “Move to”.

The same can be done by first opening the letter to read.

Automatic distribution of letters

You can set up special filters with conditions so that, for example, letters arriving from certain addresses to your mail are immediately included in the desired folder. Let's look at how to do this in Gmail.

To do this, in the mail settings there is a special section “Filters and blocked addresses”, where you can create new filter or change the old one. But you don’t have to go into the settings when you want to create a filter with the simplest condition (so that letters from certain addresses arrive in the desired folder) and for this we do the following:

All. In this way, by setting up filters, you can easily distribute letters to the desired labels without your participation.

Setting up and deleting created shortcuts

You can always change any of the created shortcuts or delete them.

To open the shortcut settings, click on the arrow to the right of it:

Through the appeared context menu You can:

Also, the ability to customize labels (except for changing the color) is available in the general “Settings” section of GMail, on the “Shortcuts” tab.

Conclusion

To make working with Gmail even more convenient, I recommend using the ability to sort emails by folders (i.e., labels) in Gmail and take this into account.

It's spring cleaning season. Google cleans Google products. And I clean Google products. Garbage accumulated in Drive, time stamps on maps, and most importantly - mail. In no way claiming to be the only solution, I just want to tell you how I organized my mail. In case someone finds it useful or gives them ideas. Or maybe you have already found The best decision and tell us about it.

GMail is good. I have four main reasons to use it and not, say, Yandex mail:

1. Strong spam filter. Once upon a time I wrote my own server stuff for netscape, then I tuned spam assassin, but as soon as gmail gained momentum, I abandoned everything. It's just not necessary.
2. Fit into the Google ecosystem. Of course, this is a matter of personal preference. It’s convenient for me when my contacts, calendar, and cloud are all in one place. Search even by mail is Google-like: fast, accurate. In general, I am generally satisfied with Google's decision.
3. There is no need to keep mail in the USSR. Because SORM, law enforcement practice, Big Brother listens to Skype and reads your letters. I have a brother in the USA, but he cares less about me than my neighbor. So we can probably generalize: “You shouldn’t keep your mail on the servers of a country that may be more interested in your personal life than others.”
4. Custom filters. Allows you to conveniently disperse the incoming flow.

A couple of days ago I decided to change the concept of communicating with email. Previously, an archive was stored on gmail, now only working threads on current topics. No storage key information in mail, and even more so in attachments. Everything is either transferred to the clouds or to the corresponding project folders on disk. Mail now - incoming channel and communication. So 93K of old messages went into digital oblivion, and with them most of the old folder structure.

What do I want from mail? First of all, understand the relevance: Do you need to respond to the letter urgently? To do this, it would be nice to immediately see which category it belongs to. For example, business letters are clearly a priority. But newsletters are read on a residual basis. Everyone has their own topics and their own priorities. It seemed convenient to me to make the following folders:

Some may find it unnecessary to separate photo sites and diaries. For some, it is important to separate notifications from banks and eBay. Some people will want to create subfolders in “friends” with their closest friends, while others will want to create folders for individual companies or projects in business. The main thing is the concept itself. When looking at these folders in any mail client It should be immediately visible: I’m reading this immediately, and this is waiting.

They will help to split the incoming flow filters. I used to use Thunderbird filters, but now I've decided to switch entirely to Gmail filtering. The reason is simple: I want mail to be filtered regardless of whether I turn on my work computer with Thunderbird or not.

Filters can use their own query language with useful operators. I will not describe how to create filters, this is discussed in detail. I'll just mention general scheme And I’ll tell you about not the most obvious things.

• You don't have to do all the filters at once. You can create them gradually, in fact. A letter arrived, clicked “More:: Filter similar letters”, made a filter.
• In filters that sort letters into folders, in addition to “Apply shortcut”, check the "Skip inbox (archive)"(“Skip the Inbox (Archive it)”). Gmain works like this: all letters go into the “All mail” folder and remain there until you delete them from there. Everything else, all the folders, are just “shortcuts” to these letters. Including "Inbox". One message may have several labels, or may not have them at all - in the latter case, it will only be visible in the “All mail” folder. That is, if you applied the “Business” label to a letter that came to you, the letter will be visible in the “Inbox” folder, the “Business” folder, and the “All mail” folder. And if you remove it, it will also disappear from everywhere. That’s why I recommend checking the “Skip inbox” box so that only one label is assigned to the letter and there is no duplication. Then the filtered letter will be visible only in the desired folder, and it will disappear from the Inbox. (Of course, it will be in “All Mail” in any case, this is a repository of all the letters that you have). By the way, if you click the “Archive” button on an email, Gmail will simply remove all labels, including the “Inbox” label, and the email will only be visible in “All Mail.”
• It makes sense to check the box for all filtered emails "Never mark as spam". Since you are making a filter, it means you probably somehow trust the source. It is better to simply unsubscribe from unwanted mailings, and mark regular spam as spam, and Google will not allow such letters initially.
• Speaking about spam. GMail stores messages filtered by the spam filter in a special “Spam” folder. Keeps for a long time. And marks it as unread, which affects the overall counter of unread letters - for example, in mobile clients. This is inconvenient for me, so I made two filters to correct the situation. First: in “contains words” indicate “in:spam” and in the next step check the “mark as read” box. All spam will now be automatically marked as read. Second filter: in the “contains words” field, specify “label:spam older_than:30d” and check the “delete” box. Spam older than 30 days will be automatically deleted from the trash bin. If you are absolutely terribly afraid of missing something (and for some reason you are too lazy to look at spam once a month), you can arrange for old spam messages to be forwarded to some garbage archive email.
• Calendar Event Notifications As a rule, they are irrelevant the very next day. Therefore "contains words" = "label:calendar older_than:1d", delete.
• Promotional letters You can immediately mark them as read. And look into the folder once a week, look at the list for something interesting. If something interesting doesn’t come up again and again, it makes sense to unsubscribe.
• In principle, you can mark as read, and letters in "Drafts". Magic word: "label:draft". However, for some reason unknown to me, Thunderbird reacts to this mark, and the Gmail web interface, although it shows the letter as read, still leaves a counter of unread letters next to the folder name (“Drafts (1)”).
• And it’s definitely possible delete drafts older than six months.
• If you wish, you can make filters, grouping all letters with attachments in one folder, and inside it there are subfolders with attachments by type (mp3, images, documents, presentations). As an example, in the filter for image attachments, in “contains words”, specify “filename:(jpg|png|tif|gif)” and check the “contains attachments” box. I warn you: in this case, the counter of unread messages will increase due to these folders, which can be inconvenient.
• If you don't want to see the attachments folder your sent messages, add "-in:sent". For your attachments you can create separate folder. Accordingly, the filter will contain the words “in:sent has:attachment”.
• Very big investment You can also filter: “larger:3m -in:sent has:attachment”.
• To keep your inbox from getting cluttered, you can also send unsorted mail older than a certain period of time to the archive. The words “in:inbox older_than:30d”, “Skip inbox” and place in the “Inbox Archive” folder. You can do the same with sent letters.

Here's the diagram. Share ideas and inspiration.

Filters in popular email Gmail service great way organize work with email, set rules for incoming and outgoing messages, and generally save yourself from routine work by entrusting everything to scripts. We have previously written about interesting opportunities customize the mailer settings for yourself, and today we will continue this topic.

1. Forward all incoming emails and archive them

If you have several Gmail accounts, but in fact you only use one profile, then there is a good filter, capable of redirecting all letters from all accounts to one main one. You can also mark them as read and archive them so they don't appear in your main inbox.

To achieve what you want, you need to create a new filter and insert the dog icon - @ into the “From” field. You can also simply put an asterisk - *.

Next step you can choose where to send letters, mark them as read, or send them to the Archive.

2. Autoresponder to email using canned responses

If you have email chains that require monotonous responses, for example: “I received the message, everything is fine. I'll let you know when I'm ready." or something like that, then you can create an autoresponder for such dialogues, which will send pre-prepared messages for you to respond to the user. If you have a lot of similar dialogues, then this method will save you a lot of time.

3. Sort messages by size and type of attached files

The standard Gmail filter allows you to filter out messages with attached files. It turns out that this filter can be significantly improved by specifying the size of the attached file. For example, you want to create a shortcut " Large files» for emails with attachments larger than 10 MB. To do this we will do the following:

In the search bar at the top open window Gmail enter the following value:

Size: 10m

After that, click the down arrow at the end of the search bar. A pop-up window for creating a search filter will open in front of you. In the same window you can create additional rules for more efficient sorting of letters. Next, click on the “create a search filter” link in the lower right corner. You can then create a shortcut for this filter.

In addition to sorting by size of attached files, you can set a filter to recognize document types. For example:

Has:attachment .jpg | .jpeg | .png | .gif | .tiff | .tif

Has:attachment.pdf | .doc | .docx | .xls | .xlsx

Therefore, the same principle can be used to sort other types of files, for example zip, rar, iso. Also to simplify routine work, you can send these letters to the appropriate folders or tag them with a specific label (Documents, Archives, Photos, etc.).

4. Setting up tabs for incoming emails

The new Gmail mail interface allows you to sort incoming messages by graphic tabs or categories. If you are not satisfied standard settings Google developers, then you can create your own rule to change these settings. For example, letters from Twitter service by default they come with the “Social” mark and if this does not suit you, then you can change the rule.

In order to do this, click on the arrow in the line Gmail search and enter the following in the FROM field: twitter.com. Next, at your discretion, make the settings provided by the standard filter.

5. Apply a filter to all letters stored in mail

When you create a new filter, it is applied only to messages that will come to you in the future. If you have great amount old emails and you want to apply your new filter to them, it is possible to make such changes.

Create a filter and enter all the rules you want to apply, but before clicking the "Create filter" button, check the box next to "Apply filter to the following chains letters." Now the filter will be applied to all your emails, both old and new.

6. Export/Import filters for different accounts Gmail entries

If you have multiple active Gmail accounts and want each of them to have your own filters, you can avoid the hassle of creating filters for different profiles. Instead, you can simply configure filters on the bottom profile, and simply export the settings to the rest. We'll tell you how to do this.

Go to the account where all filters are already configured. Next go to Gmail settings and go to the "Filters" tab. Below the list of filters you will find the “All” button; by clicking on it you will select all previously created filters. The “Export” button will appear in front of you. Now just click on it and you will download XML file, which contains the rules for all your settings. If you don’t need some of the filters for another account, just uncheck the box next to it.

To create filters for a new account, simply log into your account and go to filter settings. Then find the "Import" button and select the previously downloaded XML file to upload. Now all filters are available in the new profile.

7. Send yourself a to-do list with a specific note

If you send yourself emails with a to-do list, you can create a special filter for this with automatic tagging. To do this, create a filter and enter your email address, and in the subject indicate “To Do List”. Now you can apply any shortcut to this filter or create a new one.

8. Use Gmail like RSS Reader

After closing Google service RSS Reader, many began to look for an alternative that would also allow them to conveniently follow current news. We suggest you use it, which allows you to convert the format RSS news in an email message and send them to your inbox. After that, you can simply create an RSS label and apply it to those emails.

9. Creating a disposable email address

Actually it's old way creating disposable addresses using the main one. You can add a + sign to your email address; anything following it will be ignored by Gmail. This means that you will be able to create disposable addresses email to register on sites that require it, but you wouldn't want to give them real data.

In order for this method to work as it should, you need to register, for example with the following e-mail: [email protected]. You will receive a confirmation email. Once you've finished registering, create a filter:

To whom: [email protected] Action: Delete It

Now you can be sure that spam from this site will not reach you.

Conclusion

The news is sponsored by Yota-system: official partner Yota for strengthening the 4G Lte signal. No problems connecting with outer worlds Those people who already have this current service connected do not. But people whose area is still equipped with access to world wide web, you need to think about how to connect the Internet to your dacha. The advantages of wireless mobile 4G Internet in the country are obvious! This is also fun for the whole family in inclement weather. This and reliable access to the Internet for business people when you need to immediately contact a client or colleague. This includes communication with friends and family who could not keep you company in nature.

Where to begin?

Before optimization, my mailbox looked something like this:

Let's go straight to settings(Setting), subparagraph " Shortcuts"(Labels) to get rid of a bunch of unnecessary “folders”-shortcuts - I’m a minimalist.

I have two additional shortcuts: Subscribe(subscription) for newsletters and Notify(notifications) for, suddenly, notifications from different sites. Those. These are the letters that are sent by robots and are less interesting. You can set your own colors for labels to immediately distinguish them from each other in display mode all mail (All Mail).

Then opposite the shortcuts you should select the items “ Hide(Hide)" or " Show if there are unread (Show if unread)" - Then extra folders without new letters they won’t be an eyesore. If necessary, you can always find them by expanding the list.
Save your changes and see how much more spacious the list on the left is!

Filters

Now the most important thing: filters! This is my favorite topic.
Previously, I deleted notifications from my inbox so that important emails wouldn’t get lost among the trash, I don’t trust Google’s “smart” sorter, just like alternative regimes inbox display). Now everything is in its place.

First, let's open some letter from the inbox that the robot sent us, in the example - from lifehacker.ru .

You can copy the address or just the domain with the dog, depending on the situation. Then go to settings, section “ filters" At the very bottom there is a link to create a new filter.

A window will open in front of you. We fill in the appropriate fields (in my case, the “From:” field is enough), and click the link “ Create filter» ( Create filter with this search).

Now comes the fun part. Here you need to check the box " Skip inbox» ( Skip the inbox), so that the letter does not become an eyesore; " Apply shortcut» ( Apply the label) - select the one you need, for me it’s Notify; " Do not send to spam» ( Never send it to spam) - and there is a hole in the old woman; " Do not mark as important» ( Never mark it as important) - rarely such letters are particularly important, but Google persistently marks them as such; " Apply to other emails» ( Also apply filter to %count% matching conversations) - this will place in the desired “folder” all other letters from the inbox that meet the filter conditions, thus freeing the inbox from such junk.

To some it may seem like a big chore to sort through letters manually, but is it really that bad? We receive notifications and mailings regularly. Enough to spend 40 seconds to an incoming letter, and it never ever will not distract attention from truly important messages. It took me about a week to gradually fill the list - exactly the period during which at least one letter arrived from each service I use.
In addition, the filters are very flexible. Look at the screenshot:

You can set up a filter both for a specific mailbox and for the whole mail domain, or at key phrase on topic. In the screenshot, I even set up a couple of filters for spam emails that persistently crawled into my inbox.

Additionally

Finally, a couple more less important tips.


1. As the translator of the previous article already said, it’s worth removing Web collections (Web clips) in the settings, since they are very similar to simple advertising.
2. In the settings section " Inbox» ( Inbox) you can disable markers, they only create additional, almost meaningless icons in folders.
3. Very useful to tie mail collection from other mailboxes in Gmail: Not only can you manage everything through one interface, but you can even send emails from other mailboxes directly from Gmail.
4. Visit the section " Laboratory» ( Labs), where there are many interesting things: a counter unread messages on the browser icon, button« Mark as read", button for forced updates tied by POP-protocol boxes and so on and so forth.
5. It wouldn't hurt to include text labels for buttons either: I'm often confused by bare icons.
6. Finally, Soft Gray theme I like it better than High Contrast - less sharp lines, nothing superfluous.