I, for one, am ecstatic about this development. I’ve long wanted to be able to pay for extra Gmail storage and I think a few other folks wanted this option as well.

I guess with the extra space, I really need to make sure my filters are on point.

No I am not making this up. Yes, labels and filters are life savers. For example, I get a lot of emails that don’t require immediate attention from me. This is because I’m an information junkie. I’ve accepted and am OK with that. However, I need those emails to be out of the way so I can actually see the e-mails that require action on my part. Enter filters+labels. Here’s a quick rundown on how I do it (some of this may be email organization 101):

Step one: Identify source of email you’d like to filter. It could be from a specific email address, contain a certain word in the subject line, or sent to a specific mailing list.

Step two: Create filter based on source you’ve identified in step one.

Step three: Here’s where the magic happens. Decide what you want to have happen to the mail you are filtering. For things I don’t need to see, I prefer to Archive and Label. This gets the mail out of your Inbox but allows you to find it easily later. Don’t let my ideas limit you though, you can leave things right in your Inbox and label them, forward them to another email address automatically, delete it, star it, or any combination of the above.

That’s pretty much it. Wash, rinse, repeat for whatever other emails you’d like some automagictasticness applied to.

Suggestions:

• Automatically filtering, labeling, and starring emails that need things done with them fast (like bills). When you’ve acted on the email, you can unstar it.
• Never see silly forwards again (hello, how many times is Bill Gates going to give me money). Filter for has the word “fwd” and delete immediately. If deleting scares you (like me) you can archive immediately and delete as you see fit.

I hope this helps people get an understanding of how I use labels and filters in Gmail. If any readers have some cool labeling or filtering tricks they’ve come up with, I’d love to see them. Leave a comment or email me with them.

Yesterday I found out about this cool feature that I’m sure half the world has known about for ages. However, I’m just learning about it so here I am writing about it.

Anyhow, this feature is this “+”. A simple little plus sign. Had I known about that plus sign ages ago, my spam box wouldn’t have 6270 emails in it right now (not an exaggeration unfortunately).

How the plus sign works is like this. Suppose my email address is macbookpro@gmail.com (obviously this is not my email address). Imagine I want to sign up for some contest or whatever but I’m worried about this place selling my info and me getting even more spam. Well, I just sign up with the plus sign then. I use ericasj0ys+contest@gmail.com as my registration email address. The email still gets to me (don’t ask me how, something to do with pigeons I think) but at this point, I have complete control over that specific address.

Now lets say the I didn’t win the contest I signed up for and the contest administrators sold my information. Ericasj0ys+contest@gmail.com gets flooded with nasty spam and other assorted canned meat by-products. At that point I can set up a filter pointing all emails addressed to ericasj0ys+contest@gmail.com to the Trash. The spam never makes it to my spam box, let alone my inbox.

There are many other ways to play with the plus sign. Take these for example:

• ericasj0ys+mom@gmail.com filtered directly to the archive with the label “nag” (not seriously mom, I read all your emails the moment they arrive)
• ericasj0ys+potentials@gmail.com for giving out to random men (or women if that’s what you prefer) in bars
• ericasj0ys+employment@gmail.com for resumes and job sites

The usages are limited only by your imagination.

While you’re thinking about useful Gmail stuff, check out these Greasemonkey scripts.

• Gmail Saved Searches
• Gmail Colored Labels
  

Alrighty so I’m feeling extremely chatty lately so don’t be surprised if more posts come today. Until then dear readers…

Tags:

• gmail
• spam
• filters