Can someone explain to me how Gmail filters are supposed to be set up? I find the procedure to be quite unintuitive.

As a first step I am apparently supposed to open the message I'd like to filter so that I can prevent similar messages. I really don't like opening those, but to humor Google, I do it. Once it is opened (and not before!) I have a pull-down option of "More" which gives me another option to "Filter messages like these." That gives me a dialog box (see below) that doesn't work the way I think is logical. Hell, I don't know HOW it works, maybe it is perfectly logical if you understand it.

I get six categories on which to filter: From, To, Subject, Has the Words, Doesn't Have, and Has attachment. There is no clue as to whether those categories are inclusive or exclusive, that is, if I entered parameters in three of the six categories, would all three have to be fulfilled in order to filter, or would any one of them do?

The "From" category shows by default the email address of the sender. But the spam I want to filter shows in my in-box as being from "Promotions Department." If I change the senders email address to "Promotions Department" will that work? How about just "Promotions"? How about "promotions"? (Is it case sensitive?)

If I just leave it alone and select "Crete filter with this search" then I am given a few options about what to do with the filtered email (delete it, move it to spam, etc.) and that's the end of it.

I can then click the gear wheel on the upper right of the Gmail screen and choose settings, which brings up a screen where, if you look long enough, you'll find a "Filters" tab. Clicking that gives me a list of all my filters, and the option to either edit or delete any one of them. Choosing to edit the filter takes me right back to the original setup box, as shown below.

The "From" box isn't useful, since I get pretty much the same "Promotion Department" spam from dozens of different email addresses.

The "To" box is even less useful. Obviously if it is spam in my inbox, it is addressed to me.

"Subject" shows some promise if I can just put a single word (such as "Viagra" or "Free" or "Pharmacy" and have it trigger the filter. My experimenting on that level doesn't seem to work. Can I put multiple words, separated by commas? Are they case sensitive?

"Has the Words". Now that's a good one. Has the Words where? In the subject? In the body of the email? Case sensitive? Do I need a separate filter for each word, or can I put multiple words separated by commas? If it HAD the word(s) but DIDN'T match the "From" category, would it filter it or do they both have to match?

"Doesn't Have". How could anybody use that? Maybe if I put "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" there it would just filter out ALL my email and I wouldn't have to worry any more.

Finally, I get lots of emails that I want, complete with attachments. So that one wouldn't be useful to me.

So, does anybody want to offer me a tutorial in Gmail filtering, or point me to one online somewhere?

tanstaafl.

Are you sure you have to open it? I get that "Filter messages like these." option even when I have the messages selected in the index.


Oh... spam? I don't create filters for spam -- I just select the messages in the inbox, and hit the "report spam" button (stop sign with the exclamation mark).

If it's coming from someone I've done business with in the past, then I will go to the trouble of seeing if it's some opt-out crap that I just need to request them to stop sending email.

I can't help with the rest, as I don't generally use filters.

Doug, the way you're trying to do it is the newer method that Google has given users to set up filters, you can also go this way:

- Go to your settings in GMail (click on the gear)
- Click on the Filters tab
- Look at the bottom of the page and you'll see the link for "Create a new filter"

It still brings up that search box, but it's a nice way to start from scratch. Then you just set up your rules and save it. GMail will also give you the option to apply your filter to previous emails that match your new criteria.

But I have to agree that setting up filters for spam is not the way to go. Simply mark it as spam and go about your day. You might get more of that spam, but eventually it should work its self out. What's more, you'll be helping out all the other GMail users by helping GMail identify spam messages.

Plus, you have to be very careful when setting up a filter for spam. The potential for false-positives is great.

My mom used to do this. She had manually typed in all of the naughty words and phrases from spam into a set of filters. The thought of her, a small-c conservative, twice-a-week church goer, sitting down in front of a computer, and typing in all that offensive garbage still makes me smile.

+3 Just mark the spam as spam. Gmail will catch on and "just take care of it".

Filters are for applying lables, and actions, to desired emails.

Between Gmail's catching unwanted emails and sending them to spam, and my filters that delete unwanted emails before they get to spam, I never have unwanted emails in my inbox.

But, being somewhat OCD by nature, I always check my spam folder just in case something I did want ended up there. I average about four new messages per day in my spam box. I'm just trying to preempt those four messages, which I could do if I understood the "rules" that Gmail uses with their spam filters.

tanstaafl.

The To filter can be very handy, for example if the spammers use BCC, and your email doesn't show up in the To list. Or, with a combination of using the tanstaafl+WhateverTextHere@gamil.com trick, it can be used to catch very specific messages and filter them.

Sadly Gmail filters lack the ability to differentiate between To, CC and BCC. With those, you can do some really handy filtering in office environments to make sure only stuff sent directly to you hits the inbox. Other stuff can sit in a less distracting folder for later reading.

Just ignore the spam folder?

I don't either, and I don't have to create any filters to do something that GMail does automatically, and probably far more accurately than your filters will.



I don't understand you here. When you say "I average about four new messages," do you mean four spam messages? Because that's incredible! Or do you mean four false positives? Because that would be really bad, IMO.


Personally, I NEVER check my spam folder. I've also had approximately 2 spam messages appear in my GMail inbox in the last year. Even then, I'm just guessing, because I honestly don't remember the last time it happened. I have at least 12 email addresses all feeding into the same GMail account, and I really just do not get spam.

Doug, one more thing: what are you defining as spam? Is it just Viagra ads and the like? Or are you including things like emails from services you've signed up for?

Also if it was as simple as just rules to block spam then that's what the filters would use too. That's why you get spam with words like v14gr4 in them...

Yes, I get about four messages per day in my spam folder. I suspect that my filters (created when Google's spam filter management was more user friendly) delete some others so they never appear at all. But... once in a while I get a message in spam that isn't spam, which is why I check my spam folder and empty it on a daily basis. That takes about 10 seconds per day.

Any unsolicited email from a source with which I have never had previous contact.

tanstaafl.

I'm assuming you have an Excel spreadsheet of this data...

tanstaafl.