Have Unimportant Messages Enter Your Inbox Already Read
There are some emails that we want to be alerted to, but don’t need associated with the urgency of an unread message. To have messages like package tracking updates or weekly newsletters enter your inbox unbolded, create a ‘Mark as Read’ filter with relevant keywords or emails.
Automatically Attach a Label to Incoming Messages
If you’ve already created a label structure, you can have messages enter your inbox already labeled. For instance, if you use Gmail to manage multiple email accounts, you can have emails sent to a certain email get attached to a label to easily find messages to that account.
Automatically Group Messages From Different People
I get a lot of messages from the team at Swenson Book Development. If you have a group of people that have some connecting tie, like family or work friends, you can automatically group them with a label. When creating a filter, just add OR between their different email addresses.
Automatically Mark Messages as Important
There are certain phrases that tip you off that a message is important – ‘Urgent’ ‘Emergency’ ‘HELP!’. To create a filter that automatically marks these messages as important, add the terms you want to use to the ‘Has the words’ text box (seperated with OR and between quotation marks if it’s a phrase). Click off the box for ‘always mark it as important’.
Banish Spam to Trash or Automatically Delete Unwanted Messages
Google has a spam filter, but if you’re getting messages you know you don’t want send them directly to the shredder with a filter
For example, I was getting messages from a mailing list that wouldn’t believe me when I said I wanted to unsubscribe. Instead of getting upset, I got filtering. I created a filter that would automatically delete messages from them – and haven’t seen those messages since.
There are lots more ways to use filters – let us know your fresh ideas in the comments.
Writing and Listening — an Interview with Brooke Randel
As a young girl Brooke Randel knew little about the Holocaust—just that it was a catastrophe in which millions were murdered, and that her grandma Golda Indig barely escaped that fate. But her Bubbie never spoke about what happened, and the two spent most of their time together making pleasant memories: baking crescent roll cookies, playing gin rummy, and watching Baywatch. Until an unexpected phone call when Golda said, out of the blue: “You should write about my life. What happened in the war.” What results is a fascinating memoir—about one woman’s harrowing survival, and another’s struggle to excavate theRead more…