Managing your email inbox can often feel overwhelming. With the constant flow of work emails, promotional offers, and newsletters, it's easy for important messages to get buried. Luckily, Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook offer powerful filtering tools that let you control everything.
How to filter emails in Gmail
Gmail offers a powerful filtering system to help you organize your inbox. You can automatically sort, label, archive, delete, or mark emails based on a variety of criteria.
To create a filter, open your Gmail inbox and click the filter icon next to the search bar at the top. This will open an advanced search box with various options. Here's what they do:
- Enter email address in the field From to filter messages from that address. Use wildcards * (For example: *@domain.com) to filter all emails from a specific domain.
- School Arrive Works well with Gmail aliases. For example, if you signed up for LinkedIn using John+LinkedIn@gmail.com, you can easily filter messages from LinkedIn.
- School Title allows you to filter messages with specific words in the subject line.
- There are words and Do not have lets you scan emails for specific words. You can also use Gmail's search operators here to find multiple words.
- Menu drop-down Size and Days in approx allows you to filter emails based on size or date the email was received.
- Use box Contains attachments if you just want to find emails with attachments.
- Tick Text conversations are not included to exclude messages from your Google Chat.
- Use the drop-down menu Search to filter from a certain existing label.
When done, click the button Create filters. You can also click the button Search to test the filter and make sure it shows matching emails.
Next, you'll need to decide what happens to emails that match this filter by checking the appropriate checkboxes. For example, you can mark them as read, archive them, forward them to another address, or apply labels. If you want the filter to also apply to existing emails, check the option Also apply the filter to X relevant conversations.
When done, click Create filters to complete the process. You can review, edit, or delete your Gmail filters at any time.
Tips: If creating a filter sounds too complicated, or if you're not sure which filter to create, Gmail can help. Just select an existing message in your inbox, then click the three-dot menu and select Filter messages similar to this message. This will open a filter window with several pre-filled fields based on the message you selected.
How to set up Yahoo Mail filters
Yahoo Mail offers some handy email filtering features that can help you manage your inbox effectively. While it doesn't offer as many advanced options as Gmail, Yahoo's filters are still useful for keeping your inbox organized.
To set up filters in Yahoo Mail, open your inbox, click Settingthen select Other settings (3 dots icon). Go to tab Filter on the left and click options Add new filter to get started and use the following options:
- From: Filter messages from specific senders or domains.
- Arrive: Filter emails sent to a specific address.
- Topic: Filter by specific keywords in the subject line.
- Content: Filter emails that contain certain words or phrases in the body text.
For each filter category (From, To, Subject and Content) you can select different conditions like Contains, Does Not Contain, Begins With or End withallows you to create custom filters based on specific keywords. Additionally, Yahoo Mail lets you match cases when filtering, which is useful if you're looking for specific phrases in all caps, such as acronyms or important keywords.
Once you've completed your desired filtering criteria, you can select a folder to move matching messages to. Then press Save.
Note that Yahoo applies your filters in order from top to bottom. So when reviewing your filter list, make sure the most important filter is at the top, as it will take priority if a message matches multiple filters. You can also edit or remove existing filters from this page.
How to filter emails in Outlook
Finally, if you use Microsoft Outlook as your email client, you can filter messages using Outlook Rules. Open the Outlook app or go to Outlook.com and click the gear icon in the upper right corner. Then enter Mail > Rules and click the button Add new rule.
Note: Because the new Outlook for Windows is identical to the web version, the following steps apply to both the desktop and web versions of Outlook.
Next, enter a name for your filter and use the drop-down menu Add a condition to set conditions. You'll see several options grouped into categories. For example, a category is My name ishere you can select options like I'm on the To line, I'm on the CC line, I'm not on the To line and similar options. If you want to add more conditions, click Add another condition below the first box.
After setting the conditions, use the drop-down menu Add a condition to specify what Outlook should do with the email. For example, you can move or copy messages to a folder, delete them, or even pin messages to keep at the top of your inbox for easy review. Other useful actions include marking messages at a certain level of importance or forwarding messages to another address.
Check the checkbox Add an action if you don't want to run any more rules after this one is done. You can also check the option Run rule now to apply to your existing emails. Finally, click Save to complete the process.
Your Outlook filter is ready. You can repeat the above steps if you need to create more filters.
That's it! Now you know how to set up and use filters to organize your inbox effectively. Take the time to explore the filtering options offered by your email provider and customize them to suit your personal needs – your inbox will thank you for it!
