Gmail: Declutter Your Inbox & Reduce Email Overwhelm

1. Introduction: My inbox is wrecking my head. I just cannot get on top of my e mails. I literally go through my e mails at 11:00 at night in bed because that's the only time I have to go through them. These are a couple of problems that previous clients have said to me. Does this sound familiar to you? So I want to ask you what about your inbox? How is that looking for you right now? Is it full of unread emails that you'll get around to reading later? Or maybe you spend time each day going through them, but you're still barely scratching the surface. Feeling overwhelmed by your e mails is a common issue. If you don't put the systems or processes in place to help manage those e mails, then they're just going to end up ruuling your life. They'll end up eating into your relaxation time, your family time, and you'll end up just not switching off at all. The good news is that it's not too late to get on top of your e mails, and I'm here to help you do just that. Hi there. I'm Sharon, an experienced virtual assistant since 2010, and more recently, owner of Sharon's tutorials, where I help small business owners build their skills, their knowledge, and their confidence when using Google workspace. Now, to begin with, I need to point out that this class is not about inbox zero. You will learn how to keep your inbox less cluttered and more organized, which in turn will help save you time and head space, but I do not cover inbox zero. So, the class is split into three parts. The first part is all about instant de cluttering. These are things that you can do straightaway that will have an immediate impact, and immediate effect on the number of e mails you currently have in your inbox. The second part is all to do with the processes to help you manage the number of e mails coming into your inbox daily and to help keep your inbox more organized. It's to do with maintaining your inbox. The final part is where I show you a few bonus tips and tricks that involve the free tools that are available to you within Gmail itself. And that might help you stay a bit more organized. So these are things that I do in my own small business to help me keep on top of my own e mails. Also check out the resources page as there are a couple of useful downloads in there that I'll go through later. Now, your class project is a real straightforward one, and it's all to do with the number of emails in your inbox, but I'll go through that in the next video. If you have any questions at all during the class, feel free to let me know, and I'll try my best to help you. So if you're ready to start decliting your e mail, then let's get started. 2. Class Project: Now, your project for this class is a real easy one, but it will show you the impact of following along with these lessons. I want you to take a screenshot of the number of unread emails you currently have in your inbox right now before you start following the lessons. Then once you've completed the class and you've applied what you've learned, I want you to take another screenshot of the number of unread emails them. Hopefully, hers crust, it will be a lot less than what you had at the very start. For some of you, it will be significantly less depending on the number that you had in the first place. If you have any questions, let me know and I'll try my best to help you, but I cannot wait to see the difference in your inbox. So let's move on to the first lesson, which is all about the techniques to help declutter your Gmail right now. So I'll see you there. 3. Part 1: Categories: Now, there are simple steps that you can take right now that will have an impact on the number of emails in your inbox. And I'm actually quite good at archive on my e mails. I use lots of labels, as you can see down here on the left hand side, and my inbox type is usually set to default. As you can see, at this moment, I've got my inbox set to the unread first layout. So this is telling me that I've got 302 e mails that are unread. Now, if you're logging into your e mails and all you see is a never ending list of unread emails, then yeah it's going to feel really overwhelming. I can actually feel my stress levels rising already just by looking at 300 unread emails. So I can only imagine what it would feel like if you had thousands of unread emails. So we're going to change that right now. Now, the first thing you can do is enable the promotions and updates category tabs. So depending on which inbox layout you currently use, you might have lots of e mails like this in one long list in your inbox and the majority of them are unread because they're just not important to you at this particular time. By enabling the promotions and the updates tabs, those e mails will automatically move out of your inbox and into those tabs. To do this, we need to click on the Cog or the gear icon in the top right corner here. Okay. And this will open up your quick settings. Now, I'm just going to hide myself, so I'm not blocking anything. And you scroll down until you get to the inbox type section. And underneath where it says default, you click on Customize, and then check the box next to where it says promotions and updates. Now, when you hover over these categories, it gives you an example of the types of e mails that would be put into those tabs for you. So for example, with the updates, we've got news from Google, we've got Zoom video communications, and it will give you examples of the types of e mails that you currently receive showing you which ones they will go into. And what you're happy, click on save. And you can see straightaway, this has now reduced my inbox down to eight e mails from 302. But you can also see that I've now got the two tabs across here, promotions and updates, and when I click into the updates tab, I've got 612 emails in here. Now obviously, some of these are red as well as in red, and in the promotions, I've got 244. But in my main inbox, my primary inbox, I've only got eight e mails. Now that is so much better. So if we go back into the updates tab, and now that we're in the updates tab, you can now apply a bulk action. So, for example, if you want to delete all of them, then you simply click on this checkbox here at the very top of the page, and that will select all of the e mails that are currently on this first page. So it's telling you that 50 conversations on this page are selected, and it gives you the option of selecting all of the conversations that are in your updates. So if you wanted to get rid of absolutely everything in your updates tab, then you could click on here to select every single one of them. And then it would be a matter of clicking on the delete button here and that would get rid of everything. So just make doubly sure that that's what you want to do before you do it. So I'm just going to click Clear selection. It's worth remembering that deleted e mails will be stored in your trash label for 30 days. So if you have deleted any by mistake, then you can always go back into your trash label and restore that particular e mail. So if you just want to delete e mails from a specific sender, then find one of the e mails we're still in the updates tab. Find the e mail that you want to delete. Right click on that e mail, and at the very bottom, you've got find e mails from that particular sender. If you click on there, it will then list all the e mails from that particular sender. Again, you can simply select all of the e mails on that page by clicking on this checkbox here at the very top of the page. And that's telling that's now selected all of those e mails in that first page. Obviously, I've only got 31 e mails, so it's actually showing all of them. But if there was more than one page, then you would have that option again across the top, saying, do you want to select all of the conversations or just this particular one page? And you would just hit the trash to delete those e mails. So once you've done that with the updates, you can then follow the same process with the e mails and your promotions tab. So these are generally promotional e mails, newsletters, et cetera. Now, another way of finding specific e mails is by using the search function, which is what you'll learn about in the next lesson. So I'll see you there. 4. Part 1: Using Search: So another way of finding specific e mails is to use the search function. To find that, we click on the icon on the right hand side of the search bar here at the top of the page. When you have over it, it will say show search options. So we click on there, and then we just type in the criteria. So, for example, I'm going to put in the words Vid Q. In this section here where it says includes the words. I'm just going to type in VID Q. And then I'm going to click on search. And this will now list all of the e mails, which include the words vidIQ. Now, it can include that word in the actual e mail address itself. Or in the subject line or in the body of the actual e mail. So now I've got this list of many. It's telling me I've got many. So if we just go to the next page, Okay, we've got 75. So I've got 75 e mails all containing the word VDIQ. I can now select all of these by clicking on the chat box at the top here. It's telling me that all 50 conversations on this page is selected, I can then go to select all conversations that match this search, and I can delete all of them if I wanted to, and that will get rid of all those e mails. Another way of using the search is if you have e mails that contain large attachments, such as videos or PDF documents that you've forgotten about or no longer need. Again, we're going to click on the search Options icon here to the right of the search bar. In the where it says size here, I'm going to put greater than 5 megabytes, and then I'm going to click on search. Now, I've only got the one e mail here, so it's not too bad. But remember the e mails that have large attachments are also eating into your storage space. So it is a good idea to carry out this particular search on a regular basis. So there just two examples of using search to find specific types of e mails. And remember, you can also set it to search within a specific label. Go back into search. So you've got the options to set it to search within a specific label. So where it's got search, it's currently down as all mail. Click on the drop down arrow next to it, and you can select whichever label you want it to search in if you wanted to. So these are a list of all of my labels that I've currently got set up. You can set it to search purely just your inbox. You can set it to search sent mail, spam, mail, spam, and bin, anything at all. I generally keep it on all mail and then everything is included them. And GML has a list of search operators that can be used to narrow down your search even more. To save you from looking for this list in the GML help section, I've actually pasted it all into a PDF document so you can easily download it and keep it to hand when needed. You'll find it in the resources section for this class. Next, we're going to look at another way to quickly declutter your inbox without losing important information. I'll see you there. 5. Part 1: All About Archiving: Another great way to get started with decloting your inbox is to remove the e mails that you don't need to see. So you still want them or need them, but they don't need to be visible to you in your inbox. A good way of doing this is to archive them. What exactly do I mean by archived e mails? Well, when you archive an e mail, you're basically storing it away in a safe place in case you need it again later. I disappears from your inbox and goes straight into any labels that you've applied to it, and they also go into a label called All Mail, where it stays until either someone replies to that e mail or you move it back into the inbox again. To archive and email, there's actually a few different ways you can do it. If you're already in an open e mail, let's open this e mail. If you're already in the open e mail, then you simply click on the Archive icon, which is at the top of the page here. When you hover over it, it says archive. Or you can use keyboard shortcut, and that will automatically archive that e mail for you. If you're viewing your inbox and you have the Hova actions enabled, then you can simply hover over the e mail that you want to archive. So again, I'm hovering over this one. And over on the right hand side, you have your v hover action icons visible here, and archive is the very first one here. Again, when you hover over it, it will say archive. Third way of archiving is to right click on the e mail that you want to archive and select Archive from the menu that appears here. And finally, if you want to archive more than one e mail at the same time, then simply select the e mails by clicking on the check box next to the e mails that you want to archive, and then go up to the top of the page and click on the Archive button here to Archive the mall at the same time. So once archive, you can find all of these emails in the label called All Mail. Now, to find this, it's over on the left hand side. Click on More in this top section, and all mail is listed here. Click on that and you'll see a list of all of your archived e mails. Remember also that if you've applied and an additional label to the e mail, then you'll also find the e mail in that particular label as well. To move an archived e mail back to your inbox. First, find the e mail that you want to retrieve in your all mail label. Then right click on it and just choose move to inbox. If you've got more than one e mail that you want to move, then you can select multiple e mails by clicking on the chat box to the left of the e mails that you want to retrieve. And then click on the move to inbox icon at the top of the page. Staying in the Amil label, archived e mails are still searchable. So when you click into the Amil label, you'll see that there's some preset filters across the top here. For example, if you know that the e mail you're looking for contains an attachment, then you could click on has attachment. It's filtering out all your e mails that contain attachments. You'll also notice that as you click on each of these filters, new ones will appear. You can see that now I've clicked on has attachment, we've now got the types of attachments, so I filters it to a specific type. You can filter it down even more. If we click on PDF, this is now filtered down attachments that are PDF. By using these preset filters across the top, it just makes it a bit easier and quicker for you to filter it down by the information that you actually want to see. Because we've got it filtered to PDF attachment, you can see that the number of e mails has been field filtered down to 24 and that's it. To deselect these, you just click back on the actual preset filters that you've used, and it will take you back to where you were at the beginning. Another way of finding the right e mail is to use the advanced search options. Again, we click on the icon to the right of the search bar. And fill in any of the parameters that will make it easier to find the e mail that you're after. If we say, includes the words Christmas and click on search. And you can see all of these e mails contain the word Christmas. Just a reminder that archived e mails are included in your search results. What's the difference between archived and deleted e mails? Well, as I've already mentioned, when you archive an e mail, it's actually still there. It's just not stored in your inbox. Archived emails are still using storage space and they can still be found when you use the search function. On the other hand, when you delete an e mail, it goes into your trash or your bin folder, which you can find by clicking on the More option over on the left down here, and then click on the bin or the trash can. And this will list all of the e mails that are currently deleted. Deleted e mails stay in this label for 30 days after which they're permanently removed. Or you can just go in and empty the trash, empty the bin right now, and it will So deleted e mails don't take up any space in your storage. But before you permanently delete anything, just be doubly sure that you won't need the email again in the future. Because if you are using the free version of Gmail, then you won't be able to get it back once it's left this particular bin folder. Next, we're onto the part two of the class where we'll be focusing on maintaining your inbox starting with using labels and filters, so I'll see you there. 6. Part 2: Organising Emails Using Labels: So we're going to look at using labels now. If you're not really sure what labels are, they're a mix between a tag and a folder. You can apply a label to an e mail a bit like a tag, but then you can move the e mail out of your inbox and into the label itself and it's stored there like in a folder. You can have as many different labels applied to the one e mail as you like, and that e mail will then be found in each of those labels in the menu. But it will still be just the one e mail. So how does supplying labels help declotter your inbox? Well, it means that e mails that are currently in your inbox can be moved to an appropriate label. So they're not adding to the number of e mails that you've already got in your inbox. Whether that's by setting up a filter to automatically move e mails into their own label, or by archiving your e mails on a regular basis. You'll know exactly where to find that e mail based on the label that you've applied to it. In my own virtual assistant business, I've got lots of labels and sub labels, and I would apply at least two or three labels to each e mail. But we're all wired differently. So you might prefer just to have a few actionable labels instead. So, for example, needs follow up, waiting reply, delegate, et cetera, et cetera. And that's fine. It really is down to personal preference when it comes to organizing your own e mail system. So before carrying on with this lesson, I want you to have a think about how you want to set up your labels. How do you want to organize your e mails. Have a look at your inbox as it is now and look at the different types of e mails that you're receiving and think of how you can organize those into labels to make room in your inbox. Now, if you've never used labels before, then the rest of this video is a tutorial on how to create, edit, color, hide, and remove labels. If you do already use labels and you know the ins and outs of them, then you might want to skip to the next lesson, which is about setting up filters instead. So on with the tutorial. Now, there's a few different ways to create a label. The most obvious way is to simply click on the plus symbol here. Next to where it says labels on the left hand menu. Click on Plus to create a new label, enter the new label name. I'm just going to quickly do one called Sharon and then click Create, and it will be listed down here on the left hand side, you can see it there. If you've got more labels to create, then you just follow the same steps again. If you want to create a sub label, then click on the plus symbol. Enter the label name, tick the box next to where it says nest label under, and then choose its parent label from the list of labels currently here. We'll go to the one that I've just created called Sharon. So I've got a new label called VA work and it's nested under the label called Sharon and click Create. Now if we scroll down to where it said Sharon, you can see that there is another little label here that's indented underneath called VA work. You'll notice is now a little arrow to the left of where it says Sharon there. Click on there and it'll either expand or claps the sub labels that are listed underneath it. That's one way of creating a new label. Another way is to create a label from an e mail that's actually already in your inbox. First, we need to select the e mail by clicking the checkbox to the left of the e mail, and you can either click on the move two icon up at the top here. If you want to move the e mail to the label once you've created it, or you can just click on the label icon, which will just apply the label but keep the e mail where it is. I'm going to choose Move two. Then you've got all your labels here to move two or you've got to create new at the bottom here, so we can click on there and create a new label. So just call this one tips. And click Create. And you'll see there is now a new label here called Tips. If I click into that label, you'll see that's the e mail that I've just moved. If we just want to apply the label but keep the e mail in the inbox, then we can apply a label that's already created or we can create a new one. I'm just going to select this e mail here. We go to the label icon here at the top of the page, you can either select one of the existing labels or we can create a new one and we give it a name and click Create. So you can see the label has been created over here on the left hand side, but the actual e mail itself is still in my inbox, but you can see it now has the label applied to it here. Another way of applying a label or moving the e mail to a label is to right click on the e mail and choose move two or label as and follow the same process as we've just done. The final way of creating a new label is from the settings menu. We click on the Cog or the gear in the top right corner here. Go to see all settings, and then click into labels across the top here and you'll see a list of all the labels that you currently have. This top section is a list of the system labels such as stared and snoozed, and sent, et. Then you've got the category section. These are your promotions, your updates, et cetera. Then the last section is a list of all the labels that you've created yourself. You've got the option to create a new label here. Click on Create New label, give the label a name and click Create, and it's done. Now that we're in the label settings screen, you can see all the details for each of the labels. It tells you how many e mails are currently within that label. If you want to rename any of the labels, you can quickly do that by clicking on the label itself and Typing in the new name. If you want to edit any of the labels, then click on Edit over on the right hand side here. You can choose a new label name. You can choose to nest it under a different label if you want to as well. So this is where you also set the visibility of the labels. So you've got a labels list and you have a message list. The label list is the list over on the left hand side here. So at the moment, all of the new labels that we've created are currently visible on this left hand side. And you can see there is a more option at the very bottom of the list. So all the new labels we've created are visible above the more option button, and that's because they're all down as shown in the label list. If we look at the Sharon label that's here that we've created. If we just find that. It's down a show in the label list. If we were to change that to hide, it would actually disappear from the list over on the left and would only be visible by clicking on the More option at the bottom of the list. If I just click on ide, you can see that Sharon has now disappeared from this list on the left, you now have to click on the More option. And you will see Sharon is now there. Let's just move it back to show and you can see it's now back again and it's above the more option. You've also got the option of show if unread, which means the label would be hidden under the more options unless it contains an unread email in which case it would then appear back in the label list above the more option. In the next column along, this is the message list. The option to show a label in the message list means it would display the label name with that e mail. For example, if I go up to the donations label that we made and click on Hide for the message list, And then when we go back into the inbox. So you can see this e mail here had the donations label applied to it, and it's now disappeared. So to see it, I would have to click into the e mail itself, and then you can see here, there's the donations label here. However, if I click into the donations label down the left hand side, e mail is actually in there. It's really down to personal preference as to whether or not you want to see the labels assigned to each message without having to open the e mail to see them. Personally, I prefer to have the labels as shown in the message list. I'm just going to go back into my settings, Sal settings, go to the labels tab. Find that donations one that I had. And I'm going to click on Show Message list. Now when I go back into my inbox, the donations label is there for that particular e mail. You can also get to the same settings options by hovering over the labels on the left hand side. Clicking on the three dots, pre you've got label list and message list here to show and hide, so you can quickly change them that way as well if you wanted to. One way of helping to organize your labels is by using color to help distinguish between them. To do that, simply hover over the label name, click on the three dots and go to label color here at the top. You can choose the color that you prefer or add your own custom color if you wanted to, and then that color will be visible to the left of the label name. Also, let me just go to the Sharon one with a sub label and go to the label color and choose this one. It's now asking me because I want to color the label Sharon, and it's a parent label. It's asking me if I want to change the color on all the sub labels as well to match or just color the parent label. So I'm just going to say, yes, we'll do the sub labels as well. And you can see when I click on the Sharon label here on the left, you can see both of those have now got the same color applied to it. You can see the donations label we've just changed. You can also see it's applied the same color to the label actually in the e mail itself. Once you've got labels set up on the left, a quick way of applying labels to e mails is by moving the e mails into the labels themselves by dragging them over. If you want to move an e mail into a label that's already set up, you can simply click and drag, so we're going to clip this one and drag it over to the label that you want to move it to. So you can now see I've got two in there. And it works the other way too. If you've got an existing label down the left hand side that you want to apply to an actual e mail, then you can quickly click on the label, click and drag over to the e mail that you want to apply it to, release, and it's applied the label, but the e mail stays where it is. If you want to remove a label from an e mail, right click on the e mail itself, go to label A and D select the label that you want to remove, and then click Apply. And the label has disappeared. You can also do it by selecting the e mail and going to the label as icon at the top of the page here, and then deselecting the label and clicking Apply as before. That's also how you would move an e mail from one label to another. You just deselect the label that you want to move it from and then select a new label that you want to apply it to, and the e mail will then show in the new label. That was all about labels. Next, we're going to look at filters, which work really well alongside labels and help you to declutter your inbox even more. I'll see you there. 7. Part 2: Filtering Emails: GML filters are a powerful tool that allow you to automatically organize, prioritize, and manage your e mail. With filters, you can set up rules that automatically label, archive, delete, forward, or even start certain e mails based on specific criteria, such as the sender, the subject, or keywords in the e mail. Using filters can save you time and help you stay on top of your inbox by automating certain tasks and reducing the amount of manual sorting and searching that you need to do. In this lesson, I'm going to show you everything to do with filters as well as a few examples of filters to help you keep your GML declited. Now, there are a few ways to create a filter depending on what you're currently doing. Let's say you're searching for an e mail from a specific sender, for example, you've clicked into the search options, which is the icon on the right hand side of the search bar here, and you've put in the e mail address in the from section. I'm just going to put Now instead of clicking search at the bottom here, we click on create filter to the left of it. Now we can add in the rules that you want to apply. For example, we can say that when an e mail comes in from this specific e mail address, that we don't want it to go to the inbox, we want to skip the inbox. We don't want it to ever go to SPM, we're going to say never send it to Spam, and we want to apply a label to it. We click on apply the label and from the drop down area here, we choose the label that we want to apply. I'm just going to choose the new one that we created earlier on for Sharon. If you don't have a label there already that you want to apply to it, you can actually create a new label by clicking on new label here and giving the label a name and creating You can see the last option here is also apply the filter to seven matching conversations. This means that the seven e mails within my inbox that are from this specific e mail address, and whether or not I want to apply this filter to them as well, meaning that they would automatically go into that label. So I'm going to tick the box for yes for that. But then there's also a note at the bottom saying that the filter will not be applied to old conversations in the spam folder or the trash folder. And then once you're happy with the rules that you've set, you click on Create filter. If we go into the label for Sharon, you can see that there's some e mails in here now from the conversations that we've now applied the filter to. I'm now just going to quickly test that this works. Bear with me. Okay, so I've just sent an e mail from that specific e mail address. And if we scroll down to the label, Sharon, you can see that there is a number one next to the label name. This means there is one unread e mail in that label. So it hasn't come through to the inbox because we said to skip the inbox in the filter, and we said it goes straight into that label, which it is done here. So if I click into this label now, you will see that there is one here testing the filter, trying at the new filter. That's one way of creating a filter by using the search options. Other way is to create it from an existing e mail by selecting the e mail first, then clicking on the three dots at the top here, and clicking on filter messages like these. Again, it opens up the filter creation form with the e mail address already filled in, and we click on Create Filter and go through the same steps as before to set the rules of your filter. You can also set a filter from the settings menu. Click on the Cog or the gear in the top right corner, then click on Sal settings. Go across to filters and blocked addresses here, and this is where you'll find a list of all the filters currently in operation. So if you scroll down to the very bottom, you can see the one that we've just set up here from this particular e mail address, skip the inbox, apply the label Sharon and never send it to Spam. So to create a new filter, we coli on, create a new filter here. And again, it opens up the filter creation form where we can then specify the criteria for the filter and do the same as before. So whilst we're in the settings, I can show you how to edit an existing filter. So this particular one that we've just set up, you can see there's the Edit and the delete over on the right hand side. If we click on Edit, make any changes here that's needed, and if not, click on continue, and then we can then make the changes to the rules that we want to apply, and then as a matter of updating the filter. So I'm just going to cancel that because I haven't made any changes. To remove a filter, we click on the delete over on the right hand side here, and then confirm that you want to delete it by clicking. One thing to note is that when you edit or delete a filter, it only affects new incoming e mails that match the filter criteria. Any e mails that were already filtered by the previous version will still be in their respective folders or have their corresponding labels. So I've shown you one example of using a filter to help organize and manage your incoming e mails. I'm now going to share a few more examples of different filters that you could use for yourself to help you keep your inbox declit. Remember the search that we carried out in Lesson two, where we got it to list any e mails that contained attachments over 5 megabytes. Well, you can set that as a filter. If you go into your search here and do size greater than 5 megabytes, then click on create Filter, skip the inbox and we can apply a label called Large attachment. You would click on here, put in a new label, and we could call it large attachment, if I could spell. And click Create, and we could create that filter so that that way you can easily find e mails with large attachments and delete them if needed. We've looked at setting up a filter to catch a specific e mail address. However, you could also set a filter up to catch e mails from people who work from within a specific company. You simply use the asterisk followed by the company name to catch any e mails. For example, we'll go into search, and in from section here, My business e mail will always end in at sharonstutorial.com. In the filter, I'm going to type in the asterisk and then at sharonuorial.com. So this means that any e mails that end in at Sharon's tutorial.com will be included in this particular filter. So that could include info at hello at accounts at Admin at and any other any other members of the team. Their e mails would also be included in this filter. It's a really good way of capturing those e mails from a specific company. Another handy filter that you could use is to set up a filter to include dot ICS. So again, you go into the search and you would put in includes the words do ICS. Create the filter. You could say you're going to skip the inbox and you're going to put it into a label, for example, we're going to call it invites. Basically, any calendar invitations we'll have ICS included within that invitation. We're going to put a new label called invites, and we're going to create and we're going to apply it to existing conversations already and we're going to create filter. You can see I have got a load of calendar invites here from before. That's just another handy way of decluttering your inbox, so that any calendar invitations are just you're not being bombarded by calendar invitations into your inbox. You can set up a filter to skip them straight into their own label, and then you can just look at all your invites at once. The last filter example I'm going to show you is to set up a filter to include the word unsubscribe. That way, it will catch any newsletters or promotional e mails that land on your inbox. Now, this is especially handy if you don't have the promotions tab set up that we covered in the first lesson. If you don't have that setup, then this is a great way of capturing all of your promotional e mails and newsletters that come in. You would go into your filter. You would say includes the words sbscribe create filter, skip the inbox, apply the label. We do a new label, and we'll call it newsletters. And create and then create filter. So that means now that any newsletters that come in will automatically be filtered into that particular label. Next, we're going to look at the different inbox layers and what each one does. So I will see you there. 8. Part 2: Know Your Inbox Layouts: So, we've already covered the default layout earlier when we looked at the different category tabs, which is what I'm on now. So I've got my promotions and my updates tabs across the top. Now we're going to look at the other inbox layouts that are available to you. Now, I would recommend that you try each one out for yourself until you find one that helps you be a bit more organized with your e mails. Remember, the more organized you are, the less cluttered your inbox will be. GML has six main types of inbox layouts, including one that allows multiple inboxes, which I'll be showing you shortly. You can switch between different inbox types at any time and it doesn't affect access to your emails or your labels. To access the different layouts, you find them in your quick settings by clicking on the cog or the gear in the top right corner, scrolling down, until you get to the inbox type section. I'm just going to hide myself. So until you get to the inbox type section here. So as I said, the default inbox is what we've already looked at in part one of this class, and it's the layout that I'm currently using now. So the next one along is important first. Now, as soon as you select any of these, your inbox will automatically change. So I'm just going to click on Important first and you can see these is the list of all my e mails. Any e mails marked as important by GML are generally emails sent directly to you and have got the yellow arrow next to the name here. These are all the important e mails and they're going to be listed in the top section, and then underneath that is everything else. One good thing about using these layouts is that you can expand and collapse the sections which could help reduce distractions. For example, the important section here. If you click on where it says important, it will collapse that section and the same with everything else, see how much nicer your inbox looks now. And you can just if you just wanted to see the important ones, you could just click on Important, and it's showing me 25 of the important ones. It tells you here in the top right corner, how many of those e mails you currently have. So that was important verse. The next layout underneath is unread first, click on there, and it's the same type of layout. All of your unread emails will be shown in the top section, and everything else is in the bottom section underneath. Again, you can click on the title of the section and it colapses that section. Next, we have start first. So if we click on here, This is any e mails that you've applied a star two or one of the other icons available, they will be listed in the top section with everything else in a separate section below it. So you can see this one has an icon applied to it, which is why it's in the star section. Now the next section is priority inbox. And when you click on priority, you'll see that there's a few different sections included. So you've got the important and read first. Then underneath that, you've got the stared and then there's a section for everything else. Now, the difference with this layout is that you can customize what you want to be included and the order in which you want the sections to be displayed. To do that, we click on customize underneath where it says priority inbox. And it opens up the inbox tab in your main settings. Here you can see we're in the priority inbox type, and you can see there are four sections here. You choose which section you want to be included by clicking on the drop down arrow next to each section. You choose here, which section you want to be included. You can also set the number of e mails that you want to see for each section and you can hide the section if there's no e mails within it. You can also remove the section by clicking here and it will now put that section as being empty. So let me just do important red again. Now, Section four is set as everything else, and that is one section that you can't change. So if you click on the drop down area next to section four, you'll see there's no other options for it. It has to be everything else. Section three is currently down as being empty. So I'm just going to choose one quickly here. So if you don't want any of the ones listed here, you can click on more options, and this will list all of your particular labels that you've set up. I'm just going to choose the drafts one here. Once you've made any changes, remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Save Changes. Now we've got important read. We've got star, we've got drafts, and we've got everything else. Now, drafts doesn't have the button to expand it because there's no actual e mails included in there. But if I was to actually compose an e mail. You can see now we have one under drafts here. Let me go back into box type here. That was priority inbox. The final section is multiple inboxes, which allows you to add sections based on search criteria that you specify. If we click on Customize, again, it takes you to the inbox tab in your main settings page, and here you can see, you can add up to five sections alongside your inbox. This is where you would use search operators to define the e mails that you want to include in each section. For example, if you want your inbox to be based on actions, then you could create labels saying need reply and follow up. Let's just quickly create those labels by clicking on the plus symbol over here. We'll create one, saying need reply. I'm just going to give it a number one. So that means it will appear first in the list of labels because they're in aphabetical order. Numbers always appear before letters, and click Create. And we're going to choose another one, and we're going to call it number two, and it's going to say follow up. These are two new labels that I've just created down here on this left hand side. You can see them here. So now you would add the label name as a search query. So if I just remove this one here. So in this first box for the search query, we would type in label, colon, and then it would be the actual label name. Now, it needs to match exactly the label name. So make sure there's no typos or anything like that. So be number one space need reply. You could then give that section a name just so it's easier just so you can see it quickly which the section is. So I'm just going to say need reply. And then section two, I want the next label, label colon two, and it was called follow up. And the section name, I'm just going to say follow up. And then I'm going to scroll down and click Save Changes. Now you can see I've got the section need reply and I've got a section follow up, and then my inbox is underneath that, so that's basically everything else that's currently in my inbox. It's just a matter of going through e mails and labeling them as either follow up or need reply and then archive them. I'm going to say follow up actually Let me just apply a color to these and make them a bit easier to see this one, let's make it green. Okay. Let's just quickly apply so that you can see what it looks like. Now I've added the need reply and follow up labels to these e mails. It's just a matter of archiving them. Again, I can select all four of these and we go to archive. So they disappear from my inbox, but they're archived in the all mail folder and also in the labels that I've just applied to them. Now if you click on Need reply, you can see there's two e mails here and these are the e mails that we've just archived. Now, another example of using the multiple inboxes, if we go back into the settings, inbox type and click on Customize. Another example could be to set up a search for a specific sender. To do that, you would type in from and colon. Then the e mail address of the sender that you want to add needs to be in quotation marks. I'm going to say Sharon at Sharon's tutorials then in the section name, I'm going to put Sharon. Just need to put a and then scroll down to the bottom and click on Save Changes. Again, we can clapse these sections, and you can see there is now a section called Sharon and these are all the e mails from that specific e mail address. So we can then set up a filter for any e mails that come in from that particular sender to skip the inbox. That way, it's not clogging up your inbox, it will be in its own separate section. With regards to the search queries, remember to download the search query PDF document that's in the resources section of this class to get a full list of the types of searches that you can do. If you want to get back to your default view at any time, just click on the Cog or the gear in the top right corner, scroll down to inbox type and click on default, and it will automatically bring you back to your default view. Now, as I said before, it's up to you to find a layout that works for you. Try them all for a few weeks or a few days and see how you get on. But you can see how powerful those multiple inboxes could be once you set up your filters and labels to get everything flowing together and get a process going. Next, we're going to be taking a look at a really handy feature that will save you time and help keep your inbox decluted. It's called send and Archive, and it's in the next lesson. 9. Part 2: Using Send & Archive: Okay. So I've already showing you how to archive your e mails and apply labels to them. Well, the Send and archive button combines both. You can be super organized and automatically archive an e mail whenever you reply to it. First, you need to make sure that the send an archive button is enabled in your settings. To do this, we click on the Cog or the gear in the top right corner, and then we click on Sal settings. In the general tab, which is what it lands on, you scroll down until you get to the section called send and Archive, tick the button next to where it says, show send an archive button in reply, scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click Save Changes. Now, when you forward or reply to an e mail, you'll now see an extra blue button next to the Send button. If I click on reply, You can see here, there is now an extra button next to the Send button, and it's called Send and Archive. If you click on there, the e mail will automatically move to a specific label if you've given it one, and it will also move to the all mail label where all of your archived e mails are kept. Using send an Archive is a great way to keep disciplined when it comes to archiving your e mails. If you don't need to follow up on an e mail, then hit Send an Archive when replying to it, and it will disappear from your inbox. It's a real handy feature and it's one that I recommend you switch on. To help you stay on top of your e mails. So now we're moving on to Part three where you'll learn a few bonus tips and tricks. The first one is setting up an auto responder using filters. I'll see you there. 10. Part 3: Setting Up Autoresponder Using Filters: So you've probably already used the auto responder whenever you've gone away or taken time off. But did you know there's another way of setting up your auto responder, which uses a template that you've created. This is ideal if you only want that auto reply to go to certain people. The process is to set up your template first and then create a filter. To set up a template, we're going to compose a new e mail. I'm going to just going to open it up bigger so you can see, and this is where we're going to type out the auto reply. In the subject, I'm just going to put delayed response. Explanation work. Now, if you have an e mail signature already set up, then you need to delete it from this particular e mail, like I have here, it delete, so it's gone from this particular e mail before saving the template. And then just type out your response. Okay, so I've just quickly typed out a response here. And now we want to save this as a new template. So we're just going to click on the three dots at the bottom here for more options. Then we're going to go to where it says templates. And we're going to say Save Draft as template, and I'm going to click on Save as new template. Give the template a name. I'm going to leave that as delayed response. So that's automatically taken the subject line that I put in the e mail. That's fine for the template name. I know what it means. But if you don't like that, then you would overwrite that with a name that means something to you, so you know what the template is. Then I'm going to click Save. We can then discard that e mail. Let me just move myself. We'll just click on the trash bin in the bottom right corner here. Okay. And just get rid of that e mail. The next thing to do is set up a filter so you can set who you want the auto reply to go to. To do this, click on the search show search options to the right of the search bar again. If you want the auto reply to go to specific people only, then you can enter the, the email addresses in the from section, or if you know the e mail address ends in a company name like we covered before, you could use the asterisk and then at and the company name. So I'm just going to say, Let's just say this e mail address. Then we're going to click on create Filter. Again, you need to set the rules of what you want it to do. In this case, I just want to send it the auto responder. So we're going to say send template here. Tick on the box next to send template and then choose your template. So you can see the one I've got here delayed response. Click on there. I'm also going to put never send it to Spam just because I don't want it to go to Spam, and then click on create Filter. This is now set up when you receive an e mail matching the criteria that you set up, they will receive the auto reply that you've just created as a template. If you want to make any changes to this filter or disable it, then as before we go into the gear or the cog in the top right corner, see all settings, go to filters and blocked addresses, scroll down to the very bottom, and you can see this is the one that we've just set up here and in here is where you would edit or delete it. That's it. Job done. Next, we're going to look at another real handy feta called the Snooze feta. I'll see there. 11. Part 3: Snoozing Emails: Now, I can't tell you how much the snooze button has helped me to organize and manage the number of e mails in my inbox? It's an amazing feature. If you're one of those people who reads an e mail and then goes back into it and mocks, it is unread so that you don't forget about it, then you're going to need this snooze button. It is brilliant. It's ideal for any e mail that you need to read or respond to, but you just don't have the time at that moment. By snoozing the e mail, it temporarily vanishes from your inbox and reappears back at the top of your inbox at a time that is suits you that is convenient for you. So firstly, how do you find this snooze button. Well, as with everything in Gmail, there's more than one way of doing it. If you hover over any e mail, then the clock icon appears over on the right hand side, that's the snooze button. Another way is to tick the check box to the left of the e mail and the icons at the very top appear. Again, you've got the clock, which is the snooze button. If you don't know what these icons mean, you can hover over them, and it will give you a tool tip telling you what they are. When you hover over it, it does say snooze. The final way is if you're in the actual e mail itself, click on the clock icon, which again appears above the e mail here, and that's the snooze. Whichever way you use it, it brings up a list of different time options available to you. You can see we've got tomorrow later this week, this weekend, next week, et cetera. You've also got the option of selecting a date and time that's more convenient for you. You can click on select date and time, choose the date. Choose the time. And click on save, and you can see that e mail has now disappeared from your inbox. But over on the left hand side menu here under the folder where it says snoozed. If you click on there, you'll see that the e mail is now listed in its own label. So once your snoozed time or date is here, the actual e mail will disappear from the Snooze label and will reappear back at the top of your inbox for you to deal with. So if you go into the Snooze label where your snoozed emails are listed, you can see the snooze state is over on the right hand side of each email. Now, if you want to change the time that you've set or you want to unsnoz the e mail. You can hover on the e mail and click back on the clock icon and you can change the date and time in that way. You can also click on the button to unsmoz it, which will cancel the snooze and put it back into your inbox. Another way, if you go into the e mail itself, you can see that it's snoozed until that specific date and the unsnooz button is in the top right corner here. If you click on unsnoz, it moves the e mail back into its original location. If that was in your inbox initially, then it will go back into your inbox. I just think the snews feature is really underrated. It's really helped me clear my inbox and my head space. So that was the snows feature. I really hope you give it a go if you're not already using it. So next, we're moving on to the final lesson, and it's one that I believe is the most important when it comes to maintaining your inbox and keeping on top of your e mails. So I will see you there. 12. Part 3: Time & Discipline: Been following along with these lessons, then hopefully you'll now have less emails in your inbox. The challenge now is to keep it that way. And one of the things I always recommend is to schedule regular time in your calendar to deal with those e mails. Whether it's 30 minutes a day or an hour. If you can get into the habit of sticking to your schedule and be disciplined with it, then your inbox should stay more manageable. I would suggest that you set it up as a recurring event in your calendar and treat it as you would any other client work or admin work. What I mean by that is try to stick to it. Don't keep rearranging that time and pushing it out and then never doing it. Put your phone on do not disturb and focus purely on your e mails for that allotted time. Now I know it's really tempting to go scrolling down your phone and checking your e mails during the ad breaks of the latest Netflix series, but that's where mistakes happen. When you've got one eye on the TV and one eye on your phone. That's when you accidentally send the e mail to the wrong person, when you forget to attach the attachment, or when you miss important information that's contained in the e mail because you're skim reading it. Please schedule regular focus time to go through your e mails on a daily basis and get back your evenings and weekends again. Help you, I've included a checklist for you to download in the resources section, which lists the steps I use in my own small business to help me keep my G mail more manageable and less cluttered. That's it for the lessons, but join me in the next video for the p 13. Wrap Up: So now that you've implemented some of the techniques that I've shown in this class, how is your inbox looking for you? Hopefully, it will be less overwhelming for you. Thanks so much for joining me, and remember to take a screenshot of the number of e mails that you have now in your inbox, once you've completed the class so that you can compare it against the number that you started with and upload it as your class project. I can't wait to see if this has made a difference to your e mail. As I said before, if you've got any questions, leave them here and I'll do my best to help you. If you want to follow me on social media, my handle is at Shar Intutorials and you can see me on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Come and say hello on those platforms. Lastly, it would really mean a lot to me if you would find the time to leave a quick review for this class. Thanks, Milan and happy de cluttering. See you again soon.