Gmail - Filtering your email

Overview

Filtering your Texas A&M Gmail inbox can help you organize your email into what you want to see and read easily, and into things that you want to see and read later. You can also filter your email so that messages matching certain criteria are automatically archived or deleted. Filters can be created based on labels you specify, automatically detected types of messages, or on specific keywords you specify.

Instructions

Enabling Gmail Categories

How-to video of these instructions.

Gmail has four optional email categories that you can enable. Each category displays email in a separate tab. Gmail categorizes email into these four groups automatically based on the sender of the message, the recipient(s) of the message, and other criteria. Email from services like Facebook and Twitter are automatically filtered into the Social category, and email from advertisers is filtered into the Promotions category, for example.

  1. Click the Settings icon
  2. Select Configure Inbox
  3. Select inbox tabs to display
  4. Click Save
  5. Messages in your Inbox will be automatically filtered based on content type

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Filtering Gmail by Subject Line

How-to video of these instructions.

  1. Select a message
  2. Click on More
  3. Select Filter messages like these
  4. Remove the sender’s address
  5. Enter the part of the Subject to filter with
  6. Click on Create filter with this search
  7. Choose Categorize as
  8. Choose the category to apply
  9. Apply the filter to other matching messages
  10. Click Create filter
  11. Future messages with a matching Subject will be categorized the same way

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Filtering Gmail by Sender Address

How-to video of these instructions.

  1. Select a message
  2. Click on More
  3. Select Filter messages like these
  4. Click on Create filter with this search
  5. Choose Categorize as
  6. Choose the category to apply
  7. Apply the filter to other matching messages
  8. Click Create filter
  9. All future messages from the same sender will be categorized the same way

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Creating Labels in Gmail

How-to video of these instructions.

  1. Click on More in the sidebar
  2. Click on Create new label
  3. Enter a name for the label
  4. Click Create
  5. Select the label from the sidebar
  6. Click the disclosure arrow
  7. Click the Label color arrow
  8. Choose a color for the label

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Filtering Gmail Using Labels 

How-to video of these instructions.

  1. Click the Settings icon
  2. Click on Settings
  3. Click on Filters and Blocked Addresses
  4. Click on Create a new filter
  5. Enter a Subject to filter with. Alternately, you can use the From address for the filter as well
  6. Click on Create filter with this search
  7. Select Apply the label
  8. Choose the label to apply
  9. Apply the filter to other matching messages
  10. Click Create Filter
  11. The label will be applied to all messages matching your filter
  12. Future messages matching your filter will be labeled the same way

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Using Gmail Labels to View Only Messages With That Label

How-to video of these instructions.

  1. Select a label from the sidebar
  2. Only messages with that label will be displayed
  3. Click on Inbox to view all messages

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