Gmail is the de facto standard for webmail email these days, and for good reason, it’s awesome. But what if I told you there was an even better way to use it?
Priority Inbox… with Stars
This configuration & workflow has changed my life.
By default the Gmail inbox tries to sort your emails into “Social, Promotions, Updates, Forums, etc.” Alternatively you can just have a traditional inbox without any sorting. Forget that noise.
Go to Settings > Inbox and set the inbox type to Priority Inbox. Then, for Inbox Sections, do the following (then click “save changes” at the bottom):
This will separate your inbox into three sections. At the top will be your unread messages (if you have 2,345 unread emails, now would be a good time to just mark them all as read), then you’ll have your ‘starred’ messages, and then all your read messages.
This setup allows you to deal with all your unread messages in a very tidy fashion. Whenever you have an unread message that requires an action or reply, you can either act on it right then, or ‘star’ it if you want to get to it later.
Now when you log into your Gmail you have all the messages you need to do something with right at the top! Hooray!
10 thoughts on “Use Gmail Better”
Yup, agreed. Mine is Stared > Unread > Drafts > Everything Else. Sometimes when I have freelance work ‘drafts’ turns into a specific label, but otherwise this is the best system I’ve come up with.
I honestly can’t fathom how I survived before I figured this out.
Yup, agreed. Mine is Stared > Unread > Drafts > Everything Else. Sometimes when I have freelance work ‘drafts’ turns into a specific label, but otherwise this is the best system I’ve come up with.
I honestly can’t fathom how I survived before I figured this out.
You just saved me from a downward spiral of insanity! Thank you so much!
Glad I could help!!
You just saved me from a downward spiral of insanity! Thank you so much!
Glad I could help!!
Excellent tip.
You forgot to mention to clcik “Save changes” at the bottom of that settings page.
Thanks for the heads up! Added 🙂
Comments are closed.