How to Organise Your Gmail Inbox Using Labels and Filters

Organise Your Gmail Inbox

Using Gmail’s labels and filters, you can manage your emails with relative ease. You can also move emails out of your inbox and transfer them to another location. Labels can be used to categorise your email. Labels are like folders, but you can add multiple labels to an email and find it later by clicking its appropriate label from the left panel. You can also search emails by label by typing the label name in the search bar above.

Labels can also be used to:

• Track the status of an individual’s tasks. For example, create the labels “Charlotte: In Progress” and “Charlotte: Done” to indicate emails that Charlotte is working on or has finished.
• Organise email by nesting labels or creating labels under a label (like subfolders). For example, create the label To Do. Under To Do, create a label for each person.
• Determine which emails require follow-up.
• Determine which emails need to be read later.

How to create labels

1. Create a label:
2. Open Gmail.
3. At the top right, click Settings -> See all settings.
4. Click the Labels tab (between General and Inbox).
5. Go to the Labels section below and click on Create new label.
6. Enter the label name and click Create.
7. There is a 255-character limit for Gmail label names.
8. You can also nest labels under an existing label (like creating subfolders).
9. Create a label from an email:
10. From an email, on the menu above, click LabelsCreate new.
11. Type in the label name and click Create.
12. (Optional) Click Nest label under and pick an existing label to place it under. The new label immediately applies to your email.
    

Star important email

1. You can mark an email as important by clicking the Star icon next to it. You can do this to both emails in your inbox and emails within a conversation. 
2. To view all emails you marked as important, in the left panel, click on Starred.

How to snooze email

1. Snooze emails and postpone them to a future date or time that’s more convenient for you.
2. Open Gmail.
3. Hover your mouse pointer over to an email.
4. On the far-right end of the email, click on the Snooze  icon.
5. Pick a date and time that works best for you. The email immediately snoozes and gets moved out of your inbox. You will receive a reminder about the snoozed email after the time you specified.
6. (Optional) You can view all snoozed emails by clicking Snoozed in the left panel. 

How to archive or delete email messages

1. When you archive an email, it gets moved out of your inbox but remains under All Mail. Emails that have been deleted are transferred into the Trash, where they will get automatically deleted permanently after 30 days.
2. To archive or delete an email, select the email by ticking the checkbox next to it. At the menu on top, click Archiveor Delete. Alternatively, you can hover your mouse point over a single email and click Archiveor Delete on the right side of the email.
   

Takeaway

Now that you know how to organise your Gmail inbox using labels and filters, staying on top of all your emails will become much easier. Gone are the days when essential emails were located in the same place as unnecessary clutter. Gone are the days when your productivity was affected by all the chaos in your inbox.