Using Filters and Labels to better manage your Email

By creating custom filters and labels, you can direct emails to specific folders, forward important messages, and keep your inbox clutter-free.

How do filters work?

Email filters allow you to automate your inbox by triggering specific actions based on the criteria of incoming messages.

Scenario

You may subscribe to a mailing list that has good information, but clutters your Inbox daily. You could create a filter that would direct this mail to a specific mail folder in your account, where it can be reviewed later.

You can filter your incoming email messages to:

Sort them into labels
Archive them
Forward them
Discard them

Each filter rule consists of one or more conditions and one or more actions.

Organizing your Inbox

For filters to function, they must be created in Gmail.