If you’ve read this column before, it’s probably not a surprise to you that I am a hard-core Google fangirl. I love Google Search, Google Reader, Google Apps for Business, Google Plus, Google Books, Google Images, Google’s Android OS … you get the picture.
My first love, though, was Gmail. I got my first Gmail account back at the beginning of it’s beta period. At that time, compared to AOL Mail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and MSN mail, Google’s email offering was leagues ahead of it’s competition. It was free (!), had a great search and, best of all, I could snag my name because I was an early adopter.
Most recently, Gmail introduced Priority Inbox, and if I had gone and married Gmail, as many a wry friend was wont to suggest, we would have renewed our vows. I <3 Priority Inbox.
Helps You Keep Track of What’s Important
Priority Inbox is a concept from Google that tries to help us deal with what is probably for you, as it is for me, an immense amount of email clutter. We know we should just unsubscribe, but we don’t get around to it, or we stick with the hundreds of sale emails, newsletters and alerts just in case something important or interesting comes along. We glance at the emails as they come in quickly, don’t dive deeply into them, and probably end up archiving them almost immediately, often without even opening them.
Priority Inbox proposes to streamline that process, by sorting the “important” email – notes from your friends, mother, boss – from the “other” email. Based on your contact list, frequency of email with certain individuals and what you tell Gmail is important, Priority Inbox cleanly separates your “deal with it now” email from your “look at it later on the toilet” email. (Oh, you know you do it.)
Once you start using Priority Inbox, you’ll probably notice that during the day, you aren’t getting as much important email as you thought. A lot of it is probably junk, or less urgent. You might be able to check your email once or twice a day instead of twelve-hundred-and-thirty-eight times a day. And if you haven’t been cleaning up the important messages, you can tell Gmail to clean that up for you.
Learns from You
At first, Priority Inbox will make pretty good guesses about what’s important, but you have the opportunity to fine-tune the logic. You can mark emails as important or unimportant, or even create filters for email from certain email addresses, to certain email addresses, or with certain words in the subject – mark those as always important, or unimportant. Even skip the inbox entirely while you’re at it for some of those subscription-based newsletter emails.
If you are semi-diligent about marking the emails that Google didn’t guess correctly you should have a fine-tuned precision email sorting machine in your inbox within a couple of weeks. BOOYA.
Now Works on Android Phones and Mobile Web
Got an Android phone with the Gmail app? If so, you can enable Priority Inbox on your phone – and only get notified of Priority messages, too. That’ll definitely cut down on the “DING!” of new emails while you’re trying to concentrate on other things. It’s also available wherever you have a connected device and internet access via Gmail’s web app.
Can be Turned Off, Anytime
Just go to your Gmail settings and look for the Inbox tab. You can turn Priority Inbox (“Important”) off from here, and all your mail will be in one inbox (or Starred, Unread, etc). And later, if you change your mind, you can turn it back on, and you won’t have to start all over with training Gmail. Just pick it up!
So Turn it On!
Just log into Gmail, click on the gear on the top right, choose Mail Settings, click that Inbox link along the top and get going with the Priority / Important mailbox!
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[...] even automate it using Gmail’s filters, and SmartLabels. If you took my advice and set up Priority Inbox, you can keep an eye on important email regularly throughout the [...]