Using Filters to Reduce Inbox Clutter

Student organizations send out plenty of emails. Some are extremely important, and others aren’t worth the space in your inbox. Using filters in your email program is an effective strategy to make sure only important emails end up in your inbox.

If your group is using multiple email lists, setting up filters to place essential and non-essential emails in separate folders is simple. For simplicity’s sake, lets just use 2 folders. All essential emails go in the essential folder, and all non-essential emails will go in the non-essential folder.

If you’re signed up to 5 email lists, it will look like this:
all@myStudentGroup.gozuus.com -> essential
members@myStudentGroup.guzuus.com -> essential
jokes@myStudentGroup.gozuus.com -> non-essential
sports@myStudentGroup.gozuus.com -> non-essential
parties@myStudentGroup.gozuus.com -> non-essential

Settings up email filters is slightly different in many popular email programs. We’ll go over setting up email filters in GMail and Apple Mail.

GMail

1) Click ‘Settings’ in the top right.

Gmail Settings

2) Select the ‘Filters’ tab under settings.

Gmail Filters

3) Click ‘Create a new filter’.

gmail_create

4) In the ‘From’ field, type the email address of the email list you are creating this filter for, such as ‘all@myStudentGroup.gozuus.com’.

Gmail From

5) Select ‘Apply the label’ and choose a label, ‘Essential’ or ‘Non-essential’.

gmail_label

Apple Mail

1) Select Mail -> Preferences from the top navigation menu.

Mail Preferences

2) Click on ‘Rules’ and then ‘Add Rule’.

Mail Rules

3) In the ‘From’ field, type the email address of the email list you are creating this filter for, such as ‘all@myStudentGroup.gozuus.com’. Tell it to move the message to the ‘Essential’ or ‘Non-essential’ folder. Click ok and your filter is created.

Mail From

For more information on using multiple email lists in your group, take a look at our post managing inbox clutter using multiple email lists. If your group is already using multiple email lists, try organizing your inbox with filters. If you’re looking for an email list solution, read more about GoZuus email lists.

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