How to Organize Your Gmail Inbox in 2019

Have you ever lost an important email in the abyss of your Gmail inbox? Only to discover months later that you missed out on an amazing business opportunity, or an invitation to a really cool event or concert that you could have gone to? 

Although I typically write about computer repair, today I’m going to address something you may have been sweeping under the rug - that totally disorganized Gmail inbox that isn’t doing anything for you but taking up your Drive space with cluttered newsletters you never asked to receive. 

Google makes some powerful products and Gmail is no exception. You can make your Gmail inbox do the heavy lifting for you, only receiving important messages, storing and archiving your receipts and important attachments, and collecting weekly reading lists for you. 

When it came to disorganized inboxes, I was public enemy number one. I had over 6,500 unread emails that I hadn’t dealt with, and a ton of read emails that weren’t sorted or organized. Gmail is very smart, but I had given it no direction. No wonder I was missing out on important emails. 

Luckily I developed a system to organize my Gmail inbox that I’m going to share with you now. 

Step One: Switch Inbox Layout 

• Go to Gmail on your computer 
• Click the Gear icon 
• Go to Settings 
• Go to Inbox 
• Go to Inbox type 
• Choose Unread First 

Step Two: Unsubscribe from All Unwanted Newsletters 

This is going to take the most amount of time, but when you have a completely organized inbox that works for you, you’ll appreciate your efforts. 

Unsubscribe from each newsletter, then take the newsletter’s email address and search for it in the search bar. Select all, and if there are more than 50 newsletters, (and there likely are) choose select all messages that match this search. Then delete them all. 

This manual process took me about two hours to go from 6,500 unread emails to about 300 unread emails I wanted to organize. 

Legally, every marketer that sends you a newsletter is obligated to allow you to opt out of receiving their content. 

Some of them just don’t, and these newsletters, could, and should be marked as spam. 

Out they go. 

By the time I got to September 2018, I realized that I no longer wanted any email correspondence from before this date. I noticed that many newsletters simply gave up after sending me junk for a year, and after my two hours of unsubscribing, I had narrowed my unread junk emails down to just 100.

 I did a quick search using Gmail search operators (covered later) that went like this: “before:2018/9/12.”

I wasn’t too worried about accidentally deleting an important email because I knew I would search my trash using the Gmail search operators later to filter out any essential messages. 

Step 3: Organize the Emails You Care About With Labels 

At this point you should feel a little empowered because you’ve sent a message to countless marketers that you aren’t interested in the hundreds of newsletters they held you hostage for to download some ebook. 

Now it’s time to organize the emails you actually want to receive and care about. 

Here’s the Skinny: Labels and Folders

• Folders - A lot of email systems are based on folders. Folders might include: inbox, spam, outbox, or sent. Just like a physical folder in your office, once you place an email in a folder that’s the only place it can be. Luckily, Gmail isn’t folder-based. 
• You’ll see Gmail labels next to the message subject line and in the sidebar. If you have truly mastered Gmail organization, every message will be labeled and prioritized. Pretty much everything you’d consider a folder in dumber email systems is a label in Gmail. So trash, drafts, spam, etc are technically labels in Gmail. 

    Labels are like folders because you can use them to group related messages. But the critical difference between folders and labels is that a message can have more than one label. Labels are pretty cool - you can color-code them, for example. I’ll cover how to use this feature to organize your inbox in a few minutes. 

You can also use labels as a folder. More will be revealed. In part two of this series. 

Part Two: How to Organize Your Gmail Inbox: Update for 2019 

In my last blog, I discussed essential things you need to know before you can proceed to organize your inbox, like unsubscribing from junk email and the difference between labels and folders. 

I mentioned that I usually write about iPhone repair, or computer repair, but this was an important subject that needed to be touched upon. Here’s part two of this series. We’re going to start with the concept of “tabs.” 

• Tabs - There are Tabs and corresponding category labels. Categories will show up on the left side of your Gmail screen with other labels. Tabs appear across the top of your Gmail screen inbox. 

Pro Tip: Understanding Gmail’s Pre-defined Tabs for Five Categories 

It’s a good idea to understand Gmail’s pre-defined tabs: 

• Primary - where you will receive most of your messages. Open your gmail, and this tab will be open.
• Social - if for some reason you have social media notifications turned on, or use other social sites, the corresponding messages will go here. 
• Promotions - Promotional email messages will go into this sub-category and tab. (By now, the only promotional email messages you’ll get will be useful ones you care about, like coupons)
• Updates - Messages like confirmations and receipts go here 
• Forums - Messages here include discussion board emails and mailing lists 

Gmail will attempt to automatically send the appropriate message to the appropriate category label and tab. With no direction, you’ll wind up with a mish-mash of unorganized messages that go unnoticed, and if you’re unlucky, like me, you might end up missing emails you care about. 

That’s because messages sent to a tab bypass your primary message tab and hence, your inbox. This is by default. 

Use Labels to Organize Your Emails 

To create a new label, go to the left pane of your Gmail mailbox, scroll to the bottom and click on create new label. 

Type the name of your new label, and hit enter. I’ll give you an example. I use the website “If This Then That” to forward myself breaking technology news from the New York Times to my Gmail inbox. I’ll make a label for “read this week.” These emails will be sent here, along with any other digest I’d like to read for the week. 

Applying a Label to an Email 

I’ll do this by opening my latest breaking technology email, clicking the label icon (hint: it looks like a label) at the top of the email to open a drop down label menu. I’ll apply the “read this week” label to my email. 

You can also create new labels from here too.

Color Code the Label 

I’m a visual person and I like to quickly see how my messages are labeled in just a glance. To color code a label, pass your cursor over the label until you see three dots appear to the right. Click on the dots, and select “label color.” Choose your color. 

Manage Those Gmail Labels 

At the bottom of the sidebar you’ll see manage labels. If you click this, the Labels Settings screen will display. 

You can decide which labels you would like to display from here. I’ll opt to show labels only if unread messages are categorized under this label. You can decide what you’d like to show, hide, or show only if unread here. 

If you need to remove or rename a label, you can do that here. 

Use Gmail Labels Like Folders 

Some labels, you’ll find, are already set up like folders. Take the spam label. It bypasses your inbox and primary tab so you won’t see it. 

I want to create a label for all of my receipts. I’ll create a new label called “receipts,” then select an email that confirms receipt of payment. I don’t really need to be alerted that my payment has been received, but I’d like to store this information. 

I’ll click labels, then select “receipts,” then click the X on the inbox label to send my message directly to my receipts label. 

The cool thing about labels is that if a message has two labels, it will appear under the second label as well. So my insurance payment confirmation will appear in my insurance label, as well as my receipts label, but won’t bug me by showing up in my inbox. 

Really Start Using Labels 

Now that you know how to use labels, organize your Gmail by: 

• Adding new labels to group messages together 
• Add color coding to important message labels so they will be easy to find 
• Hide message labels that you don’t want to see, or set the option to only see them if they are unread. 

Step Four: Organize Emails You Care About With Tabs 

You don’t have to deal with the five default tabs in your Gmail inbox. You can disable any tabs you don’t like or care about, with the exception of the Primary tab. 

To Disable a Tab: 

• Click Settings (the icon that looks like a gear that is located in the upper right corner of your Gmail screen). 
• Click Configure Inbox 
• Select or deselect checkboxes to see or un-see tabs, and click the save button. 
• For example, I receive all of my social media notifications on my phone and don’t need to have them emailed to me. I have disabled the social tab. 
• You’ll see handy examples of what might be included in the tab when you select or deselect checkboxes to help you decide if you need to use this tab or not. 

• Proceed with Caution. If you disable a tab full of messages, these emails will display in your email under primary. Oh well, just more fun stuff to organize! 

Use Starred Messages 

Select include starred in primary to prevent you from missing an important message you might want to follow up with. 

You can fine-grain this organization even more, perfect for a control freak like me, by color coding the stars. 

Then, if you need to see all messages with a “green” star, you can run this search in the search box: 

“Has:green-star”

Step Five: Get Even More Control With Filters 

I brought up receipts before. This is an example of an email I would like to keep for my records, but don’t need to see. 

You can create filters to automatically archive these types of emails. Open one of these emails, click on more, and select “filter messages like these.” 

You can fine-tune your filter, too. You can use Gmail search operators to group related messages, apply filters, star messages, and choose from a whole lot of other options as well. 

• You can have filters that automatically sort your incoming email into specific labels. For example, emails from your bank can automatically be labeled “bank.” 

Step Six: Use Gmail Search Operators

Don’t forget that Gmail is a Google product, so it’s got some pretty powerful search features in it. Remember how I said I was going to search for important messages I might have inadvertantly sent to the trash? 

Here are some useful search operators you can use when you are trying to retrieve messages: 

• from:(recipient) 
• to:(recipient) 
• subject:(any word in a subject line) 
• label:(label)
• Filename:pdf 
• Is:important 

You can use these search operators to create powerful filters, too.

Step Seven: Check on Your Filters To Make Sure Everything Checks Out 

To do this, go to settings, then filters and blocked addresses. 

Step Eight: Stay Vigilant 

Having the perfect inbox isn’t a “set it and forget it” process. There’s always going to be new types of emails arriving, ready to annoy you or actually inform you of an important even. You’ll need to take action. Unsubscribe and filter, to prevent your inbox from becoming disorganized again.

Divert Newsletters You Don’t Want 

You can sign up for as many apps, newsletters, forums, or websites as you want using your regular Gmail address without having to deal without inundating your inbox with junk mail. 

When registering for something you’d rather throwaway, add a + to any word before the @ symbol in your regular email. 

Example: “[email protected]”

These messages will still reach you at your address, but Gmail will recognize the +word attached to it, so you can set up filters to redirect messages to specific labels. So download as many free ebooks as you want in return for your email address, but assign them to a “junk” category that immediately deletes them.

Organizing your inbox might seem like a chore, but I found that once you get into it, it can be a calming and satisfying process. It is easy to learn, and my inbox does the heavy lifting for me now, rather than obscuring important emails and harassing me with marketing nonsense I don’t need.