just an asterisk

I recently converted over from Gmail to Google Apps for my domain and went through the process of transferring my email.  During the process, I moved 13930 emails.  With such a large data size to test with, it got me to thinking – are there any filters that nearly everyone could use?  Emails do not vary as much as you might think.  I took some of my favorite filters and checked to see if they worked only for me or if they could be applied to others as well.  Here is what I came up with:

Filter one – Star messages that are confirmations of orders.

When I order something online, I often star confirmation messages of pending deliveries for quick reference.   I’ve had about 99% accuracy with this search:

((confirmation OR Thank you) and order)

Give it a try.  Put that same search in your search bar in Gmail.

Did it work?  The results should pretty much just be order confirmations… Click on to create your own filter with the same query.  Put the terms in the “Has the words” section, as shown below and click next step.

Check the box “Star It” as shown below, or you could add a new label for your orders.

Finally, click “create filter”.  In my case, I didn’t want to apply this to previous conversations, only new ones, so I didn’t check the box next to “Also apply filter to ### conversations below”

Filter 2 – Travel Itineraries

I travel quite a bit and my itineraries end up getting lost in a sea of incoming email.  I call them out with this query:

(Itinerary and confirmation) –unsubscribe

You might be wondering why I include the –unsubscribe.  This is to remove emails from vendors who are trying to sell me travel software (that can track itineraries and confirmations and therefore appear in my results).  Who needs a piece of software when I can make Gmail do it?

The setup for this one is similar.  Follow the steps above, but in the first screen put:

You could also have put unsubscribe in the “doesn’t have” field (without the “-“) and it has the same effect.

In this case, you might want to include a new label, creating a folder for all your travel plans.

Filter 3 – Work Emails need their own space.

This one is going to need to be customized, but it’s still a goodie.  I send most of my mail to the same place.  However, personal mixed with professional else gets a bit tiresome (and confusing).  Luckily, there is a simple solution.  A domain specific filter.  This will put email from a specific domain (like “gmail.com”) in a special folder.

Create a new filter and try this:

By including the @justanasterisk.com in your “From” field, you filter only the messages sent by that domain.  In the next screen you can apply a new label and save your changes.

I hope that these little filter tricks have either given you some new tools or some food for thought.  Let me know if you have any filter tricks in the comments.  I’d love to hear them!

~ab

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 8:15 am and is filed under Feature, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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