How to put the messages in the order of arrival?

I have been using Gmail for years now. It is so easy that you can just add your address and start sending mail without having any idea about what goes where or when they arrived. But sometimes, things happen that are hard to explain. I am sure there must be many people who would like to find out how their mails end up on top of each other.

For example, say you want to get some information regarding a particular message but all your saved searches only show older ones (and maybe even spam) – then you need to sort them manually one at a time until you end up with the right one. Or perhaps someone sends you two pieces of information which both require action - if you were sorting manually you might either miss one or forget to take appropriate action on the second piece of info. In such cases, we often feel stuck because we really don’t know how our mails ended up on top of each other. Luckily, Google has provided us with tools to help solve these problems. We will look at several ways to organize your inbox as well as automate tasks that normally involve going through hundreds of old emails.

How do I automatically send an automatic email from Gmail?

If you use Gmail regularly, chances are good that you receive lots of automated e-mails every day. These include confirmation codes sent after making purchases online, receipts emailed to you for credit card payments, etc. The problem here is that most of those e-mail arrive randomly, meaning you may never see them before digging through dozens of previous emails trying to locate them. To avoid doing that, try setting up an alias account specifically for receiving email confirmations. This way you won't mix up regular messages with the new kind of messages. You'll also be able to quickly filter the latter type. Here's how to create an alias email account:

Sign into your main Gmail account. Go to Settings " Accounts & Import. Click Create New Account. Enter your name and click Next. Fill in the required fields under Email Address and Password. Then check Mark box next to Sign Up With Your Provider and select Other Mail Client. Choose IMAP and enter imap.googlemail.com as Host Name. Finally, click Continue, Agree, and Finish. After creating the account, sign in to it with your normal Gmail credentials.

Now, whenever you're ready to buy something online, simply forward its link to the special address you created above. For more details, read How Do I Forward Emails From Multiple Addresses Into One Folder? below.

Here's another scenario: suppose you've got a lot of receipts coming your way and you want to keep track of them easily via spreadsheet. All you need to do is attach a file called receipt.csv to the subject line of every incoming email with details like sender's first name, amount paid, and dates received. Now, let's say you accidentally delete said files. No worries! Just write a quick script that looks within Trash folder to grab all.csv files attached to emails with specific subjects and creates a separate document for each recipient. That way you'll always have everything organized neatly in a single place. Scripts like that are great examples of simple IFTTT recipes. Check out Automate Any Task with If This Then That for ideas.

The downside of forwarding e-mails lies in the fact that people you share your aliases with will no longer be able to view original content. Also, forwarding doesn't work in corporate environments. However, if you're okay with forwarding, you should definitely give this method a shot.

Can you set emails to auto send?

Yes, there are plenty of solutions available for scheduling emails. Unfortunately, most of them are limited in functionality. Some services allow users to schedule multiple outgoing emails per day while others offer options similar to forwarding. What none of these provide is an option to choose exactly when e-mails should be sent. So if you'd like to schedule an event, say, a reminder to pay bills, you still need to wait till the due date arrives before clicking Send.

If you're looking for a solution that allows scheduling and choosing exact dates, try Zapier. There's a service available for free called Zaps, which lets you connect Gmail and Outlook Calendar. Once connected, Zaps provides users with a convenient tool to specify dates for scheduled events. Simply compose an email with the necessary data (date, title and text), hit Save draft and pick a target date in your calendar. And voilà — your message gets delivered at the specified moment. When you wish to cancel the delivery, just disable the trigger for the corresponding event.

Zapier also offers users the ability to integrate various third party apps with Zaps. By combining different services together, you could potentially build custom automations that suit your needs best. Read Zapier documentation to learn more.

In case you prefer a simpler approach, consider using Boomerang instead. Boomerang gives users a chance to schedule delayed deliveries. They can do so using triggers triggered by actions performed elsewhere. Let's assume you're waiting for client feedback on your project. Every time your boss opens an email, he/she could mark it as high priority. In turn, that label will cause the message to stay inactive until a later point in time. At that point, you can decide whether to deliver it immediately or save it for yourself to review later.

Boomerang supports integration with many popular web applications including Basecamp, Trello, Asana, Github, Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, Todoist, etc.

How do I make certain emails go directly into a folder in Gmail?

This feature comes in handy especially if you have tons of promotional emails cluttering up your inbox. Imagine getting loads upon loads of newsletters, discount coupons, promo codes, etc., arriving daily, hour by hour. Not only does it become difficult to manage them properly, but also quite annoying since you probably wouldn't bother opening promotional emails anyway. A better alternative would be to move those kinds of emails straight to Promotions folder in Gmail. Here's how to achieve that:

Create filters based on keywords. First, identify types of emails that come in and exclude them from showing up in promotions category. For example, you can create a filter that applies to certain addresses and labels. Filter criteria could consist of words like newsletter, promotion, coupon, etc. Select Apply the Label... dropdown menu and choose My Labels. Now, apply the same logic to exclude emails containing terms like price breaks, discounts, deals, etc.

Next, create a new filter that moves all filtered messages to a designated folder. Use Is: [your_filter] field to match against phrases mentioned earlier. Under Move Message(es)...choose Specified Labels. Type in destination folders and drag and drop them into desired locations.

You can also tell Gmail to move all matching emails to a dedicated folder automatically. Open Preferences window and navigate to Filters tab. On Filter Actions section, scroll down to Customize Messages Action and enable Moving selected conversations to folder.

After enabling this option, Gmail will scan your inbox once a week and move all matching messages to Promotions folder.

Also, you can opt to skip scanning altogether. Instead, configure Gmail to move matched messages to Promo folder 24 hours after they appear in inbox.

Can you make emails automatically go into folder?

As discussed previously, moving emails to designated folders isn't enough. Sometimes, you may want to change their location entirely. Fortunately, it's possible to customize settings for individual messages to perform additional actions. You can instruct Gmail to archive messages, mark them as done, flag them as important, highlight them in green font, etc. Here's how:

Go to Details screen and open Properties dialog. Look for the Archive button located at bottom of the page. Drag and drop it between Important and Unread tabs.

Similarly, you can manipulate flags too. Right-click on flagged message and select Flag as.... Choose Green Tag, Red Tag, Yellow Tag, Blue Tag, Purple Tag, Orange Tag, Pink Tag, Grey Tag, Black Tag, White Tag, Gray Tag, Dark Gray Tag, Light Gray tag, None, etc.

Another useful trick involves highlighting emails marked as unread. Hover over highlighted area to reveal color palette. You'll notice that default color assigned to Highlighted Text is yellow. Change it to white by selecting Color scheme...option hidden behind the gear icon.

When you return to Details screen, you'll notice that highlighted texts now display as black boxes. Feel free to play around with colors further. Hint: you can also change background color of highlighted messages by editing Colors section.

Feel free to experiment with many other customization features offered by Gmail.

It's worth noting that you cannot access preferences panel from within Gmail itself. However, there are numerous guides available on the Web to teach you how to tweak Gmail settings effectively.

Happy organizing!

Originally written by Kannon Yamada on March 28th, 2012.

I'm a big fan of using email filters. My inbox is usually pretty clean because I have developed good habits over time—and when there are things that need actioning straight away, I can just highlight them with an @ sign before pressing reply. However, sometimes there's something urgent or important that needs attention right now but for whatever reason isn't being flagged as such (maybe your boss wants some changes made immediately). In which case, you'll want to set up a filter so that they're always at the top of the pile.

Unfortunately, if you use Gmail as your primary mail client, setting up these sorts of rules takes a bit more work than usual. You might end up with hundreds of mails going through every day, so here we show you everything from adding new labels to syncing your existing ones across devices. Let's get started!

How do I automatically receive emails in labels?

If you want to be able to quickly see what label a message belongs to without having to open each one individually, you'll need to enable SmartLabels first. To do so, go into Settings " Labs " Filters and Blocked Addresses. Scroll down until you find the SmartLabel Filter section, then check the box next to Enable Smart Labels.

Now whenever you send an email from anywhere on earth, Gmail will create a little icon above the subject line showing you whether it was sent successfully or contains spam. Clicking on that icon reveals two further tabs—one labelled Sender Name and another labelled Message Subject. This provides you with quick access to information about who emailed you and what the subject matter was. It also lets you choose between three different colour schemes. If you'd like to change any settings, head back over to the same screen where you enabled SmartLabels. From here you can select your preferred colours, disable the icons altogether or turn off both sender info and subject lines completely. When you've got everything configured exactly how you want, hit Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

This method works well enough once you've figured out the best way to navigate around Gmail. Unfortunately, since the feature relies on labelling individual emails rather than creating filters based on certain criteria, there's no easy way to apply specific labels to incoming mail. Don't worry though, as the steps below should help fix this issue.

How do I make all emails read in labels?

Since you won't be manually applying labels yourself, you'll need to ensure all future emails start off under their own heading. Go into Gmail Preferences, click Browse All Mail, then mark Read Later next to Always include [labelname] in the list of options. Now, even if you forget to tag a particular email when composing your missive, it'll still appear under its correct coloured bar.

You can also take advantage of this function to easily sort multiple categories of emails together. For example, say you wanted to keep track of personal and business correspondence separately. Instead of opening up separate accounts, simply group all of your email addresses within Gmail itself. Then follow the instructions above to apply a label to any outgoing mail. Whenever someone sends you a message, it'll fall into whichever category applies most closely. Here's how to set up your account:

Go to Accounts & Import tab in Settings. Under Email Options, click Create New Account. Give it a name and enter your details. Hit Continue, followed by Sign Up. On the following screen, tick Sync Google Contacts to pull in your address book contacts. Finally, scroll down to Security and privacy and toggle Use Two-Step Verification to protect your account further. Once done, hit Next again. Accept the terms and conditions, hit Finish, then wait while the process completes. Note that you may need to confirm your password after signing up.

Once you've confirmed your login credentials, you'll land on the overview screen shown earlier. At this stage, you can begin organising your accounts however you wish. Simply pick Other Sources (bottom left) and browse for additional mailing services with Exchange support. Since Outlook uses ActiveSync technology, you'll only be able to link GMail with Microsoft 365 users. Otherwise, try connecting Yahoo!, AOL, iCloud, Hotmail or other popular providers instead. After selecting your provider, hit Done.

Back in the main Settings menu, go to General tab then click Advanced Features. Find More Services at the bottom of the window and search for POP3. Check the box next to Allow remote mail retrieval via TCP/IP and hit OK. Your browser will prompt you to download a small plugin enabling you to retrieve new mail regularly. Follow the prompts to complete installation and restart Chrome. The next time you log into Gmail, you should notice that you can view any recent messages downloaded to your computer. Just double-click on the file to launch outlook.exe and peruse your inbox. That's really all there is to it.

Can you automatically add labels to Gmail?

It turns out that Gmail actually already has a very useful tool called Auto Labeling. Basically, you tell Gmail to scan through all of your incoming mail and identify certain words as labels. So, for instance, let's say you were hoping to monitor your finances more diligently. You could build a rule that scans all of your incoming emails looking for references to money, credit cards or investment portfolios. Any instances would trigger the creation of a new folder titled Finance.

To configure this functionality, go to Settings " Filters and Blocked Addresses. Beneath Rules for incoming mail, type in a word or phrase that matches the kind of content you're trying to catch. Select Preview pane and set the Scan mode dropdown to Everything. Choose your desired Colour Scheme and click Create Rule.

Next, switch to the Labels tab in Settings. By default, Gmail shows you a preview of the text inside incoming emails based on the contents of those letters. Change Label Source to Plain Text. Click Apply Changes at the bottom of the screen. As soon as you save this, all matching emails will automatically pop into a new folder marked accordingly.

When you look at the folders themselves, you'll note that they're basically empty. Why? Because Gmail creates a temporary label for each instance. Therefore, to avoid clutter, you shouldn't delete these folders. Instead, move them elsewhere. Alternatively, you can leave them alone and simply rename your new finance subfolder to Money, Credit Cards or Portfolio depending on what you plan to categorise.

Finally, to prevent accidental duplicates from appearing in your inbox, go to Folders tab under Settings. Set Show duplicate copies of messages in folders to No.

How do you sync Gmail labels?

The final step is to synchronize your existing labels across devices. While you probably won't want to retype your entire workflow due to habituation effects, you can certainly copy paste text snippets between computers. To achieve this, you'll need to install gmvault. This free utility essentially stores your data locally so you can access it wherever you want.

First, grab the latest version of the app from Github. Extract the archive and run the executable file. A few moments later, gMVault will ask permission to access your clipboard. Agree to this request and press Enter. Upon doing so, you should see a series of numbers scrolling past endlessly. These represent the last modification times of all of your current documents. Copy and paste this code into Notepad or Word and save it somewhere safe.

Next, close all running programs including antivirus software and firewalls. Navigate to C:\Users\[PCNAME]\AppData\Roaming\.gmvault\backups. Inside this directory, you'll find a bunch of numbered files. Right-click on one and select Open With... followed by Windows Explorer. Look for a folder named GMLogic_YYMMDDHHMMSS—the format looks identical to the sequence displayed during backup. Rename this folder according to today’s date and place it alongside your previously saved text snippet. Afterwards, you can safely unplug your PC from power source and plug it back in without worrying about losing unsaved data.

That's it! Hopefully, our guide helped clear up any confusion surrounding how to manage your labels effectively. And remember, if you ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices available, you can always expand upon your initial setup by building custom filters.

I'll start with the first one. You have 100+ emails that arrived today but they're all mixed together in your inbox. What's more annoying is that some are from people who keep sending out newsletters or promotional stuff without reading them before hitting "send." So now you've got to spend time sorting through these things just so you can find the important ones - which may be buried at the bottom of multiple pages of junk mail.

If you want to sort those emails into folders (or labels) then we need Google apps scripts. This article will show you exactly what steps to take to create such script, as well as explain why it's useful and where it came from. In case you haven't heard about it, here's another way to look at it: If you had two different computers, could you tell which emails were sent on which computer simply based on their subject lines? No? Then why would anyone expect someone else to be able to figure it out either? That means there must be something wrong with our current system. It works for me because I'm organized enough to use labels, and even if I didn't organize them, Gmail does everything automatically anyway. But it doesn't work for everyone.

So let's get started! First off, open up your Gmail account settings page. Click on the Labs tab and scroll down until you see Script Editor. Enable it and click Create New Applet. The rest of this guide uses the example of creating a new applet named SortEmails whose purpose is to automate the process of labeling incoming emails. When you save the document, however, you can call it whatever you like. Just remember the name when you run it later. Once you set up the code, you won't ever have to edit anything again.

Now let's get coding...

Here's the meat of the code. We need three variables called LabelsArray, LabelName and MessageID. LabelsArray holds all of the possible names of each individual label. LabelName contains the actual label that should appear next to every message. Lastly, MessageID stores the unique identifier of each particular message. This number lets us refer back to any given message in the future.

Once you've typed all of this in, press Ctrl + S and select Run Selected Code. Your browser window should immediately fill itself with HTML code. Right below your editor pane, you'll notice a small blue button labeled Stop Debugging. Hit it and go ahead and close the Script Editor window. Now you can move onto the final step.

The second part of this whole thing involves modifying the main function within the applet. Let's say you wanted to add 10 extra buttons to the top right corner of your screen. Here's how to change the size of the existing ones:

for(var i = 0;i < numButtons-1; ++i){

$('div#button'+i).css({width:'10px', height:'15px'});}

In other words, whenever you reference $("button"+i), you'd replace 'i' with whichever number corresponds to whichever button you're referencing. For instance, if you're referring to Button 2, you'd type "$('button2').css". Also note that instead of having 15 separate elements, you only need 1 element per button. This simplifies things greatly since you no longer have to worry about getting rid of the old divs later.

Alright, so far so good. Next comes adding the action listeners. You might think that you have to modify the entire function yourself, but you actually don't. Instead of typing in long functions that run when certain events happen, JavaScript has its own language known as ECMAScript 5. There are several ways to write event handlers, but the easiest method seems to be using anonymous methods. Anonymous functions basically allow you to pass parameters into a function without explicitly naming it. To demonstrate, consider the following piece of code:

function MyFunction(){

//doSomething();

MyFunction.prototype.doSomething= function() {

alert ("Hello World!");

This creates a variable called MyFunction and defines it as a function object. Inside MyFunction, it alerts Hello World!. However, we can't access alert inside the body of MyFunction unless we give it an identifying parameter. By declaring it outside of the function, we effectively create an anonymous function. Now you can retype the above line as follows:

MyFunction.prototype.doSomething= function(messageText) {

alert (messageText);

And voila! Whenever you try calling MyFunction.doSomething(), it'll alert the text stored in the messageText argument passed into it. Try changing "hello world" to "goodbye cruel world" and running the code. Notice how you still end up seeing both alerts pop up simultaneously? Well, fear not! All we have left to do is create a few buttons to control the flow of execution. Here's what happens once we hit the stop debugging button earlier:

Notice how the execution jumps straight over the alert box and starts looking for the links associated with the newly added buttons? The reason for this lies in the fact that JavaScript runs in single thread mode. Basically, it stops executing code after it hits a breakpoint/button until it receives input from somewhere external. Since we haven't provided any yet, JS needs someplace to check for clicks. Fortunately, jQuery provides a convenient shortcut for controlling DOM manipulation via user interaction. The following bit of code tells javascript to wait until the user presses a mouse button:

$('input[name="stopDebug"]').click(function(){

window.location='javascript:"http://www.google.com";';

return false;

You can also trigger actions based upon keyboard inputs. Type in the word "start", followed by the desired keystroke combination. For example, if you wanted to simulate pressing the enter key, you'd type "StartEnter". A full list of available shortcuts can be found here.

That covers most of the basics needed to create a basic scripting interface. Feel free to play around with the code and experiment. One last tip worth mentioning is that unlike many languages, JavaScript treats whitespace characters as insignificant. Therefore, making sure to indent properly helps reduce errors caused by messy source files.

Finally, feel free to download the finished version of this project [No Longer Available]. If you decide to share it, please be sure to include attribution information along with your post. Credits always help encourage further development. As usual, feedback and comments are welcome too. Happy scripting!