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Revisiting Multiple Inboxes

The Gmail Multiple Inboxes have gone through some basic changes, and I thought it would be nice to write a short article on them, to make it contemporary. I could have updated my original blog on that topic- About Multiple Inboxes, but I like to keep a record of how things progress with regards to different Gmail features and hence was a bit reluctant to remove the original text and screenshots. 

The most important change has been the transfer of this feature from the Advanced tab under Gmail settings to the Inbox tab as an inbox layout option.


Once that layout is selected, the relevant sections where you can include your search definitions for individual panels and also their relative position with respect to the inbox are displayed.


Filling out the "search query" for the Multiple Inboxes panels will require some thinking on your part based on how you like to manage your emails. 

For example, I have the habit of archiving emails once they are dealt with. So, most of my Multiple Inboxes panel queries would either include the term "label: inbox" or "in: inbox". That way, once I archive them, they disappear from my inbox and the Multiple Inbox panel views. 

That said, if I want a panel to display archived emails, I can do that as well. Just look at the Twitter panel in the screenshot below to see what I am talking about.


Once the options are entered, click on the Save Changes button and you should be set. 


If you want to have panels for specific labels in your multiple inboxes views, and also want those emails not to appear in the main inbox, simply amend the filter which applies the label to also archive the message, removing it from the main inbox. 

The filter definition should look like this: 

Matches: from:(username@example.com)
Do this: Skip Inbox, Apply label "Labelname"

Be sure to apply the updated filter definition to existing messages. 

Finally, if you have set your Multiple Inboxes to be positioned above the inbox, bear in mind that the Settings icon will be positioned just above the main inbox and below the Multiple Inboxes.

Comments

  1. Unknown14 September 2020 at 03:09

    Hi! Thanks for the post. I hope you can help my with my set up. I have already defined the filters in a very simple way (the come from specific email addresses or domains). Each filter gives specific labels. I have set up the multiple inboxes so that each inbox is for a specific label. All these works fine. There's a slight "problem" though: when I open the emails that appear in the specific label inbox, all the messages of the conversation open; but if I open them from the inbox (in the bottom) then only the last one opens (which is the desired behaviour). Do you have any idea how to change the setup so that the label-specific inboxes work the way the inbox works? Thanks in advance for your help!

    ReplyDelete

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