Agreed. I have a fair number of rules set up in my Gmail (26 by this count, and probably half of them no longer needed) and I spend at most two minutes a day managing my inbox. Right now my inbox has a total of three items in it, all requiring action on my part. My spam folder is empty. I average perhaps 10 spam messages a week, one or two of which make it into the inbox, my rules take care of the rest.

I do have 32 "Labels" defined where I catalog emails I might want to refer back to sometime, and a quick look surprisingly shows that there aren't any labels I want to delete. Once in a great while I go through those labels and delete unneeded individual emails. After four years on Gmail I am currently using 9% of my allocated 7691 MB of Gmail storage.

Clearly my email usage is minimal and atypical compared to most of the people here, and the advantages of Gmail [large attachment sizes, simple off-premises access, quick response, keyboard shortcuts, etc.] make it ideal for me.

YMMV.

tanstaafl.

That works, but only if I want it applied to everything that comes into my account. Let me make up a few example e-mails to show the limitation:

First message:
To: ListA@place.com, tom@place.com
Cc: manager@place.com
Subject: Important A thing

Second message:
To: ListB@place.com, tom@place.com
Subject: Something about B

Third message:
To: ListTomIsntOn@place.com
Cc: ListA@place.com
Subject: C is the place to be

Lets say I have a filter that says To: ListA@place.com, Skip the Inbox, Apply a label "A".
And one that says To: ListB@place.com, Skip the Inbox, Apply a label "B".

So far so good, all the message above would skip the inbox, and have labels applied. (Double checking here, GMail is missing a specific Cc field, but I believe it caught them anyhow if it was a To rule)

Now, how do I set up rules to do the following:
I want the first message in my inbox, but not the second or third message. This is doable in Exchange, along with my IMAP setup where I use sieve. The rule in Exchange looks like this:

Sent to: ListA@place.com
Move to the ListA folder
Except where: my name is in the To or Cc box (also useful, there is just a separate choice with just To or just Cc)
Stop processing more rules

The key part here is the "except where" ability of rules to create exceptions.

Oh my god. You think Outlook rules are good? They are miserable. MISERABLE! I don't really use a lot of GMail rules, so I can't comment there, but Outlook has the worst rule processing of any native email client I've ever used.

In the process of migrating away from more Google services - yay! Right now I'm trying to export calendars. As is typical with most Google services I've used, following directions online proves fruitless. Missing links in my calendar settings. So, after editing some options in the Google apps domain admin panel (in the second "settings" tab, not the first), I'm supposed to be in business. But options still missing. Some folks say it may take a few hours for the settings to take effect. So I'll wait.

This process is great, because it just reaffirms my decision to move away from Google's crap.

SOMETIME LATER.... Ok, the options I was looking for never appeared for any but the first calendar. But on the bright side, I found a different (much better) way to export my calendars. I'm not sure why my Google search didn't pull up anyone recommending this nor why the couple of help files on Google's own site didn't tell me to do it this way.

For future reference:
1. Log into Calendar where you're an admin
2. Go to Main Calendar Settings (gear on top-right of window)
3. Click on the Calendars tab (default starts on General tab)
4. Under the calendar list, to the right of the button to create new calendars is a link labeled "Export Calendars" - click it and you'll be downloading a zip containing .ics files.
5. Done

Sweet.

Nope, I don't think that. Just using Outlook/Exchange to show how far behind GMail is in that regard.

I loved the dataliberation.org page. Thanks Matt.

I don't mind GMail GUI but I am actually am an Outlook fan (and in general I much prefer a client operating locally). I've several rules that I carry with me from years ago, updating them as needed. In specific folders, I also use labels and I have tens of categories that now make very much sense to me.
Searching is quick and easy.
I manage my PST files and my OST files quite easily, keeping a local copy of all my relevant messages since years ago, which I like and would never give up for an on-line service (which is why I really liked the Google approach to "data liberation" that Matt linked).
Calendar works flawlessly, and I use many of them for a nuber of reasons. I mostly manage two mailboxes with it, one for work on an Exchange server, another one for personal mail on a Kerio server installed locally in my home server.

My WP7 also plays a role in my email overal happyness, I have to say, as I really like its email features a lot.

I have to say I'm quite happy with my email overall setup, at present, which happens to be almost entirely within the MS ecosystem.