How To Use Email Filtering Within Gmail

By Stefan Richter
Expert Author
Article Date: 2010-06-10

If you are like me you may be using Google Apps (or GMail) in combination with an IMAP enabled email client such as Mail or Outlook.

Recently I noticed that I was missing some emails which were not caught by any of my filters: in a nutshell, I filter emails for each domain I want to receive email for by applying a label which then shows up as an IMAP folder in OSX Mail. However some senders, particularly bulk emails such as newsletters, specify the 'to' address as either undisclosed or even as the sender address rather than the actual recipient's email address (in this case that'd be mine) which in turn causes the emails to sit in my inbox amongst thousands of other emails where I may miss them.

I thought it would be easy to simply create a new label for unread emails in GMail but unfortunately the label 'unread' is reserved by Google (it did not use to be). You can of course also run a search for unread emails but that does not give you the ability to automatically label the matching messages. To workaround this you can do the following:

1) create a new label such as '_unread'

2) create a new filter with the criteria of 'label:unread' in the 'Has the words:' field

3) Test the filter: all your unread emails should show up

4) click 'Next Step' and ignore the warning

5) apply the label you created in step 1

You should now have a new folder in your email client that shows you all unread emails in GMail. One thing to note is that your local folder may also show any corresponding read messages which are tied to the same conversation as an unread message.

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About the Author:
Stefan is a certified Flash Developer who has been involved with Flash Media Server since its very early days. From his home office in the UK he has handled a variety of projects, specializing in Flash Video and Rich Internet Applications for clients that include CNET, USA Network and Unilever. Stefan is the author of a series of Adobe Developer Center articles, has spoken at several industry events and contributes a regular column on Flash Video to Streaming Media Magazine. His site www.flashcomguru.com is one of the largest online resources on Flash Video.