1. Log into your gmail account
2. Locate the wheel-like looking icon, click to open up a drop down menu
3. Select and click 'Settings'
4. A new screen will open, locate the Labels tab and click on it
5. Under the label tab menu, near the bottom left, click on 'Create new label'
6. A pop up form will show up, give your label a name (think of label as your folder's name).
* You can even nest a label under a label (like a folder inside another folder). If you want to nest it, first you have to create the main label, when that's done, then create the label you want to nest under that main label.
7. Now that you created the label, you need to create filter to tell the system to automatically file emails for you. Click on the Filters tab at the very top.
8. At the bottom right of the screen, locate and click on 'Create a new filter'
9. A pop up window will come up. Here you will fill in all the info. you want the system to check when an email arrived at your inbox.
>From: put in any email that you want the system to group together in a folder.
>To: fill this section if you have a specific email address that you want the system to look for.
>Subject: certain word in the subject line
>Has the words: here you can put in any word you want to check for (ie. invoice, payment, mom, etc)
>Doesn't have: words the email doesn't contain
>Has attachment: email containing a file or not
***You don't have to fill it all out. Like the pic. I posted, I only fill out the From textbox.
10. Once you're done with this form, click on 'Create filter with this search >>'
11. Ignore any pop up message that said something about changes has not been saved. Click OK to discard the changes.
12. Another pop up window will open up, this is where you tell the system what to do with the emails when they matched your filter criteria.
Choose Skip the Inbox if you want the email to go directly to the folder. If you want to manually file it then don't check this box.
Mart as read & Star it (a yellow star picture next to the email) is pretty self explanatory !
You should check the Apply the label: box, then click on Choose label... to select the label you just created. This will make the system add the label name to all your incoming emails that matched the filter criteria you set up.
Then you can Forward the email, Delete or Never send it Spam
While you're filling this out , the system is doing a scan in the background to see if any OLD emails in your inbox matches the filter you created. If any email (conversations) matched, it will display the # of matching conversation (mine has 0 matching conversations). If you want to apply the label to old email, then remember to check the Also apply filter to # matching conversations.
13. Click on Create filter to complete it.
As you can see on the picture below, your "label" will show up under your Inbox. I opened all my new email so I can't screen capture one to show you. But say, if there's any new email, the label name will appear bold with the total # of new email it contained. For example: hosting (3) < means there're 3 new emails in the hosting folder.
Hope this is easy to follow ! Once you created one you'll get the hang of it and will see how easy it is. I shortened my list in the image above, but in reality, I have over 20 labels (folders ;-) These helped me greatly in organizing important emails that I need to check right away over ones that can wait. If you have any question shoot me an email or leave me a comment ! Happy labelling !
