Hey friends!
I’m Tasia and in this video, you’ll learn how to use Gmail filters in this short Gmail
filter tutorial.
So first things first, what is a Gmail filter?
Gmail filters are a way of automatically organizing incoming emails.
So, you’re telling Gmail to filter incoming messages based on the desired criteria that
you’re setting.
Got it?
Good.
So as we go through this video today, keep in mind I’ve got a ton of videos on Gmail
tips and tricks and Google Drive Features, so if you want more Google content, explore
the links below.
So now that you know what a Gmail filter is, let’s learn how to use Gmail filters.
We’ll focus on how to create Gmail filters, how to edit them, and how to delete them.
So, there are a couple of ways to create a Gmail filter.
One way is to head to your search bar at the top of your Gmail, and select the downward-facing
arrow on the righthand side of the search bar.
Now, there’s a lot of different ways to create a filter.
You can filter by email addresses, websites, domain names like @ finerworks.com - so I
can auto filter out anything from that domain.
But look further here and notice all the options we have for creating filters.
We can filter to, subject, if the email contains or doesn’t contain certain words.
You’ll notice as soon as you start filling in any of these criteria, the option to create
a filter will be enabled right here from this search bar.
However, there is another way to create a Gmail filter that you might find easier or
more streamlined, and that’s to create one right from an email that’s already in your
inbox.
So, if you get newsletters from a certain company all the time to your inbox and want
to filter them out, you can do it that way too right from the email itself.
So I’ve gone ahead and opened an email here from my inbox.
And right underneath that search bar, I’ll click the 3 dot menu icon, and look at this,
here is an option to filter messages like these.
Go ahead and click that option and voila, here we are back in that search functionality,
with that email address already filled out in the from section.
So, you can add other criteria if you want, but if you’re satisfied, just select that
‘create filter’ option in the bottom right.
Now obviously the filter isn’t fully created just yet because you have to decide where
you want to filter those emails to.
So now you’ll select from this checklist what you want to happen to emails from that
filter you set.
If you don’t want it coming directly to your inbox, which I imagine you may not, click
that option and then you can still tell Gmail what you want it to do with that message once
it skips your inbox.
I recommend applying a label.
This is going to help with your organization of any messages you’ve filtered.
After all, you’re still going to want to review these messages and keep things orderly.
So, if we select ‘apply the label’ I can now select from labels I’ve already created,
or I can create a new label.
So, for this example, I’ll create a new label here - and remember to label this for
whatever works best for your gmail organization.
So, I’ll select ‘create’ for this label I’ve made.
So now I’m back in my options here for this particular filter.
And, before we finish making this one, I want to point out a very important option here.
This is a very handy tip, so listen up!
If you find some important emails automatically keep going to your spam folder, you can create
filters to stop that.
So, remember all these options here on what we want to happen to the message we are filtering.
So, if you’re filtering something that you don’t want to go to spam, but has the tendency
to do so, you could select ‘never send it to Spam’, in which case you can send it
to a label or keep it in your inbox.
But how cool is that option?
So, there are a few other options you have when creating a Gmail filter, but here at
the bottom is another nice feature.
Gmail will recognize how many other messages you have containing your filter criteria,
and we can choose to apply this filter automatically to those already existing messages.
So not just to future ones coming in, but these currently in your Gmail.
So once you have everything set the way you want, just click ‘create filer’ again.
So, the message I just filtered, is no longer in my primary inbox, but instead, if we look
at my labels on the lefthand side here, and I’ll click on the label I created, and blamo
- there are the messages I’ve just filtered.
So remember, creating Gmail filters can be applied really to any email for any reason.
So, again, going back to an important message in your inbox - what if you have a top client
and you always want to make sure emails from that client are marked as important?
You can’t risk one of their emails getting missed.
There are a couple of different options for this.
So let’s say this is an email from an important client of mine, we’ll follow the same steps
as last time by selecting the 3 dot menu icon, and choosing to filter messages like these.
We’ll select ‘create filter’ and now remember our criteria options?
There are a few ways you could mark emails as important.
You probably wouldn’t want to skip your inbox, but you could star it, you could ensure
it is never sent to spam, you could always mark is as important, or you could even add
a custom label to it marked IMPORTANT or urgent, or classified, or whatever it is that will
alert you to messages from this sender.
So, I’ll create this filter as an example.
And now we see my criteria have been set here in my inbox, because I didn’t want to bypass
my inbox.
Now you may remember from some of my other videos, that you can and should take advantage
of color-coding options within your Google exosystem.
The same can be said here in your Gmail.
So, if you’ve just created custom labels, why not color-code those labels too?
So back in my inbox here, we just set a label for these emails as IMPORTANT.
But let’s make the label stand out more with a color.
So, hover over the label on the lefthand side of your Gmail, and select the 3 dot menu icon.
Then, select label color and select the color you want for the label.
So what happens if you no longer want a filter you created?
Well, you can edit or delete any of them.
Here’s how.
This time, from your Gmail, select the gear icon near the top and select ‘see all settings’.
From here, click on ‘filters and blocked addresses’.
And look, here are all the filters I have applied to incoming mail.
And to the right, you can edit or delete any of these filters.
So, if you want to edit the criteria for a filter just select edit, or just delete the
filter entirely.
Remember, if you want even more Gmail tips and tricks I’ve got a bunch of links below
and again at the end of this video.
So that’s it for my Gmail filter tutorial.
I hope you learned how to use Gmail filters properly.
Now I want to hear from you.
How do you use Gmail filters?
Let everyone know in the comments below.
As always, thank you guys so much for watching.
If you liked this video, I want to know.
Give it a like, a share, or leave that comment below.
You can click right about here to subscribe to my channel and right here and here for
more Google content.
Thanks for watching guys, see ya next time!