Gmail Tips: 9 Easy Tricks And Tools To Keep Your Inbox Under Control

Gmail Tips: 9 Easy Tricks And Tools To Keep Your Inbox Under Control

Earlier this week, Gmail posted a few tips for "powering through hundreds of messages." They're helpful for sure, but we wanted to share some of our other favorites that help us deal with the endless flood.
While Gmail's Priority Inbox is surprisingly good at figuring out what's important, we recommend setting up a few quick filters, labels and tools of your own for even more control. It might take a bit more time, but these 9 tips will help you whip your inbox into shape, stay organized and cut down on email clutter.
If we missed any of your favorites, share them in the comments below, or upload them using the "Add a Slide" tool!
If you found these tips helpful, you might also like our 21 essential Gmail tricks.

Get Organized With Labels

Once you get a taste of labels, you'll never want to go back to using folders. Gmail's labels function like tags, so something that's both important and related to family can be labeled as such. This saves you from having to throw it into a complicated tree of folders and remember later where you put it. To start, set some up for finances, family, friends, events, bills and social networking updates. Add colors to the labels to make it easier to browse your email at a glance.

Set Up Filters--You'll Be Glad You Did

A half hour spent setting up smart filters will instantly curb inbox clutter. Think of it as your first line of defense for cutting back on non-essential emails about subscription reminders, Twitter updates, newsletters and other automated messages. Almost all of it can (and should) be quickly whisked away, labeled automatically before it hits your inbox, and saved for later.

To access, head to Gmail's Settings > Filters, where you'll be able to manage current filters and create new ones. You can also use any email message as a starting point. Click the More Actions button and select Filter Messages Like These.

Combine Filters And Labels
It's Gmail's incredibly powerful ability to combine filters and labels that makes it our email client of choice. With the two working together, you can, for example, automatically label all email coming in from your friends as important, while labeling Netflix disc updates and sending them straight to the Archives. And, fortunately, it's incredibly easy.

We recommend setting up filters to auto-label certain emails, and then have non-essentials skip your inbox -- you can always check them later under their label. A few ideas: all mailing lists and deals get a special tag and automatically skip the inbox, family members can get a label, and all social media updates from Facebook, Twitter and other services skip the Inbox and get labeled.

Power Through Your Inbox

You've been there before, unable to move while staring at an overflowing inbox. This might seem incredibly obvious, but just start moving through it. As you come to a new message, either quickly respond, trash or archive it, or label it as "needs responding" if you don't have time to deal with it now. Once you've got Gmail's key commands down (we'll get to this later), you should be able to move through a packed inbox in 10 to 15 minutes, and once everything is processed, you'll be able to attend to the messages that really matter.

Merlin Mann's observation from 5 years ago are just as apt today: "The dirty little secret, of course, is that you don't do it by responding to each of those emails but by ruthlessly processing them."

Archive, Archive, Archive

Learn to love the Archive button (or key command 'e'). Once you get in the habit of processing your email, you'll find many messages can simply be read, labeled, and archived. And, of course, you can always use search to find it again. If you're continually archiving the same type of message, consider setting up a filter.

View Multiple Inboxes At Once

The Gmail Labs Multiple Inbox tool reorganizes how your mail is displayed. Head to Gmail's Settings > Labs to turn it on, and then a new Multiple Inboxes tab will show up in the settings pane. Instead of a single list of email, Multiple Inbox displays multiple inboxes -- go figure -- for quickly catching up on your important emails. We recommend setting one up for un-processed email, one for "must respond" and another for upcoming events.

Get Your Labels Under Control

Keep your sidebar labels pruned to only the essentials. You probably don't need to be checking your Netflix updates or SkyMiles numbers daily, so click and drag those into the "More" section. This leaves your sidebar streamlined with just the most important labels (e.g. finances, family, must respond and events)

Learn The Key Commands

Reaching for the mouse each time you want to archive a message or move to a new one simply adds up over the time. Tap Shift-? to bring up Gmail's handy keyboard command overlay, and take the time to memorize shortcuts for jumping to the next message (j), instantly archiving the current message (e) and quick replying (r).

Turn Off GChat

Chat might be essential to the modern workplace, but it's only going to serve as a distraction if you're trying to make a dent in your inbox. You can disable it under Settings.

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