Automating Archiving

The gmail blog published some 9 reasons as to why users should start archiving. People started to wonder why they should even bother, part of the concern due to them feeling the job repetitive. But it need not be. You can automate the process of archiving emails using filters!

After you enter into your mail account, find the “create filter” option near the search box, and click it.

The rest of the process is very simple that even a layman can figure it out, anyways, I will go through it. Now, you should have a yellow display asking you to “create a filter”. Here you define the criteria for the filter. I am going to enter “reports at sitemeter dot com” in the text box opposite to from, since I want to archive any mail sent from this mail address to me. Here I don’t want the reports from sitemeter to clutter my inbox neither do I want to delete it, as it may be useful as a future reference. There are also options to further refine your filter such as “subject” – which includes mails having the certain words in the subject to the filter.

Click “next step” after filling in the necessary parameters. This leads you to another set of options. Click “Skip the inbox(Archive it)” for archiving the mail. I also select “sitemeter” – a label I had already created, so that I can find all the mail from “reports at sitemeter dot com” in the “sitemeter” label. Click “create filter”.

A message displaying the parameters you choose and the actions that will take on those mails will be shown.

You have created a filter that will automatically archive your mails with certain parameters.