Using Filters for Organization - Gmail Tutorial Pt. 3

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In the last part of this tutorial series, I explained how to use labels to sort out and identify mail depending upon email address. Today, I’m going to tell you about filters, which are a powerful tool to let you define what goes on with your mail. Read Part 1, Part 2.

As a bonus, I’ll even teach you how to manage your WordPress blog back this way.

What are Filters?

Just like their name suggests. Filters ‘filter’ out your email and perform a pre-defined set of actions on them. For example, you could create a filter to send all emails with the subject ‘Drugs’ to the trash, never troubling you to with see it.

Filters also allow you to apply labels to the emails, so you can identify them easily in the sea of emails. You can also star(highlight) emails. The possibilities are endless.

What’s their practical use?

Filters are like automatic managers. They do all the work so you don’t have to. Really, wouldn’t you like it if all emails with the subject ‘URGENT!’ were labeled accordingly so you would could tend to them soon? Or would you like to wade through the sea of emails, trying to find a needle in a haystack?

One practical use of filters, which I will explain later in this tutorial, would be to manage your blog backups. Keep reading!

Let’s Filter

Gmail has a dedicated page for managing all your filters. Click on Settings -> Filters, to come to the following screen:

You can see I have several filters in place which define what happens to my mail. This saves me and will save you a lot of work.

Let’s Create One

Suppose I want to create a filter which sends all mail from my Twitter account(alerting me of new followers, messages) to the trash, so I don’t have to worry about deleting each new email one by one. A better way would have been to disable messages on my Twitter account itself, but for the sake of demonstration…

So, first, I click on ‘Create a new filter’, to welcome the following:

This may seem a bit intimidating at first, but once you get a hang of it, it’s easy as pie.

Now, we’re at a fork, and each path takes us to the same destination. I’ll take the shortest one. In the Subject field, I simply type in ‘is now following you on Twitter!’ (without the quotes). I don’t need to worry about the part before the ‘is’ because it will show up in the filter criteria anyways.

I could also enter more details, such as ‘Twitter’ in the From field, but that will be good enough.

Now, I want to test if my defined filter criteria will work. So, I press the ‘Test Search’ button. To get this:

There you go! My filter criteria worked and my filter has successfully caught all emails which fulfilled this criteria. Now, I just press the ‘Next Step’ button to define what happens with all this mail:

Now, I can do many things with my filtered email. For example, I can archive it, (which means it will not be shown in the inbox but stored safely anyway[not deleted]), mark it as read, add a star to it, apply a label to it(yes emails can have multiple labels), forward it and delete it(To the Trash!).

NOTE: The last option, ‘Never send it to Spam’, can be useful at times. Some times, emails may come close to the invisible border dividing spam mail and legitimate mail, but aren’t really spam themselves. In other words, they may look fishy, but in fact are legitimate.

To prevent Gmail’s sophisticated anti-spam techniques from catching these types of emails, check this box. It will never be sent to the Spam folder again :D. This is really useful if you deal with such emails.

Now, what I want to do with my Twitter emails is to send them to the trash. So I just simply check the ‘Delete it’ checkbox. I could also check other options , like ‘Mark as read’ too, but it’s better not to overkill.

Also, there were many emails from Twitter in my inbox before I created the filter. I want to make sure that these emails are also affected by the filter. So, I check the ‘Also apply filter to # conversations below’ button too. And so these emails get deleted too.

And I’m done. I can now sit back and relax, while the filter does all the work!

WARNING - Filters are an extremely powerful tool. When they say they will catch all email that fit the criteria, they mean it. So, be very careful when defining your filter criteria. You don’t want to catch (and delete :o) important emails too!

BONUS: WordPress Backup

For this, you need the extremely handy Database Backup plugin. I’m not going to tell you how to install it. You can find all installation instructions on the plugin page.

What this plugin does is that it simply backups your database and either lets you download it or stores it on the server or emails it to you. We are going to choose the third option.

Set Up the Backup

First, arrive on the plugin page in your WordPress admin (Manage -> Backup). This page contains a whole list of tables currently in your WordPress database. The core tables are always backed up, so you don’t need to worry about them. If you do want to backup other tables (for plugins, etc), check the respective boxes.

Now, scroll down the page, to the ‘backup options’ area. If you want to download a copy first, click on ‘Download to your computer’ and then click the ‘Backup!’ button.

But that’s not what we’re interested in. Scroll down further, to the ‘Scheduled Backup’ area:

Now, select all the tables you want to back up. Then select the times you want the backup emailed to you. I suggest you select the ‘Once Hourly’ option. Then enter your email(either the one managed by Gmail or your original Gmail one, it does not matter).

Click ‘Submit’ and you’ll see the following at the top of your screen:

You’ve done half the work.

Create the Filter

Now, you’ll receive the backup every hour to your Gmail account. Now, you want to create a filter to mark the backup email as ‘read’, and archive it, so that you don’t have to worry about it. You could also send it to the trash, and recover it when needed.

Can you create the filter yourself? If so, great. If not, keep reading!

Go to the filters administration area in your Gmail account, and create a new filter.

Now, the easiest way to create a filter for this would be to simply define the subject ‘field’. Emails from the database backup plugin contain the words ‘Database Backup’ as the subject (I’ve tested it), and have an attachment. So now you simply type in ‘Database Backup’ (without the quotes). Also, you check the ‘has attachment’ checkbox, since the backup is contained as an attachment(not required)

Now, I click ‘Next Step’. There, I just simply click ‘Mark as read‘, and ‘Skip the inbox‘. If I wanted, I could even add a label to it and star it, but that’s simply a waste of time. Don’t overdo things. Enough is good.

And we’re done. All database backups will now be archived, marked as read, and saved safely, just-in-case ;).

So, you’ve now learned about one of Gmail’s most powerful features. Go filter!

This was the last part of this tutorial series. I will be posting a wrap-up post too, in which I will give out further, miscellaneous tips about Gmail. Stay tuned!

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